Consenting to the use of cookies and cache can make for the optimal browsing experience. But it can also be a nuisance. Here's how to clear your saved information...
When you visit a website, there is normally a little pop up window asking whether you accept or reject cookies. We are not talking about the delicious chocolate chip infused snacks or biscuits for our American friends. How could we reject those? These cookies - if accepted - are digital files that log or remember information you input (like your address or login details for example) in order to make your future browsing experience easier. You are automatically logged in to various accounts thus not required to remember or input passwords.
You may have also heard the word cache floating around. Cache is similar to a cookie but instead of remembering your personal information it logs the content of a web page such as images, videos, third party links so that when you next visit the site it will load up faster.
Consenting to the use of cookies and cache can make for the optimal browsing experience. But it can also be a nuisance. Take the following scenarios:
In our line of work, it is easy to sound like a broken record. ‘Have you cleared the cache?’ The number of times we have been working away on an update, make it live, the client goes to check it out but the pre-update version loads. We get a lot of phone calls and messages from clients saying it hasn’t worked! It is just the cache kicking in. Remembering and loading all the details of the old version. The cache just needs a reset.
Or perhaps multiple employees are using the same computer but have their own individual logins but ‘Barry’ keeps getting automatically signed in. Oh Barry!
Another scenario is when you unwittingly stumble across an unsavoury site or scam. Don’t berate yourself - these scammers do their best to make it all seem legit. Without going into too much detail, cookies in a way are transactional and you do not want salacious information being stored on your computer.
Or maybe you have completed a cheeky personal task using a work laptop or computer. Maybe you forgot to order in the grocery shop? Need to complete an urgent piece of personal admin? Your child forgot to tell you about a form that needs to be completed for a school trip until the morning of deadline day and you frantically try to fill it out in between meetings and tasks so they don’t miss out? You don’t want your personal login details to be remembered or stored by those devilish cookies on your work computer.
Do not fear! You can clear your cache and cookies with ease and all of the information gets deleted. Just follow these simple steps:
How do I clear cookies for a single website?
- Click the padlock in the browser bar
- Select Cookies
- Highlight the relevant website and click the remove button as many times as it takes. The reason you can get multiple websites is there is information from other websites linked to your current page. Take Daily Mail for example one page has links to multiple ad trackers.
How do I clear the cache for a single website?
- Go to the 3 dots or Kebab Menu > More tools > Developer Tools
- Select Application which can be found in the menu beginning elements, console etc. If you cannot see it, click the chevron icon which will reveal more options.
- Select Storage under application
- Click ‘clear site data.’
How can I reset Chrome's cache fully?
- Open Chrome
- Click the 3 dot icon in the top right hand corner
- Select ‘More Tools’ > ‘Clear Browsing Data.’ ( There is also a cheeky shortcut that will take you directly to this page. Just press Command + Shift + Backspace.)
- In order to reset the cache fully, select ‘all time’ and it will delete everything.
- Tick the boxes for ‘Cookies and other site data’ and ‘Cached images and files’
- Press ‘Clear data’.
Top Tip: if you turn ‘sync’ on in Chrome, you can delete your data across all your devices for the Google Account you are currently synced to.
- Open Chrome.
- Go to Profile in top right hand corner
- Turn on sync. (If you are not logged into your Google Account, you will be asked to Sign In.
- Select ‘Yes, I'm in.’