Why Should I Clear my Cookies and Cache?
If you are having trouble logging in, trouble with the speed of our website, or any number of unusual issues or errors, clearing your computers cookies and cache is one of the first solutions we recommend.
Web browsers usually download and store web pages on your computer’s hard drive as a way of improving the speed of websites. This process is referred to as caching. Even though it is a helpful function, it can cause problems for several reasons:
- As your browser stores more data, the browser gets heavier over time. Deleting the cache may, therefore, free up some space and ironically help you to have a faster browsing experience.
- With cookies and a full cache, browsers "remember" old versions of websites. Usually, this is not a problem, however at www.moonrakeronline.com we are continuing to improve and update out website on a regular basis. Remembering an old version of a page on our site can cause a problem. Clearing cookies and cache tells the browser to start over fresh and this will result in a better online experience.
- Browser cache can pose a risk to the user. If someone gains access to your computer, all they need to do in order to see some of your personal data is open your cache folder. This is another reason why you may want to delete your cache.
How to clear your cookies and cache by browser:
A hard refresh refers to the process of clearing the browser cache on a specific page in order to make it load the most recent version instead of the cached version of the page. A hard refresh usually does the trick, but in some instances, you might need to delete all browser cache.
Option 1 – How to ‘hard refresh’ a webpage
- To perform a hard refresh on Chrome, Firefox or Edge, Windows users can use the shortcut Ctrl+F5 or Ctrl+Shift+R.
- If you’re on Mac, press Cmd+Shift+R to perform a hard refresh. Or, press and hold the Shift key and click on the Reload button.
- Internet Explorer users can press Ctrl+F5 to hard reload it. Alternatively, you can press and hold the Ctrl key and click on the Reload button.
- Since Safari doesn’t have any direct shortcut to perform a hard refresh, you’ll have to manually clear the cache and then refresh the webpage. Read on to learn how.
Doing a hard refresh almost always works. However, there are some special circumstances where you may perform the steps suggested above and still notice no change after reloading your edited webpage. If this happens, you might have to either try loading the page in a different browser or performing a full refresh.
Option 2 – Full cache refresh
You will find browser-specific instructions for clearing your cache and cookies on the following service websites:
Clearing your cache and cookies usually takes less than a minute. Weekly clearing, besides giving you the freshest content, is also a good way to keep your browser running smoothly. If your computer stores too many files in its cache, it can become bogged down and start to move slowly, or even crash.
We hope this article helps to improve your internet shopping experience.