I often hear about how “Temporary Internet Files” affect my computer’s hard disk space. Temporary Internet Files are Web pages, images, audio, video and graphics files that Internet browser stores on our hard disk during our Internet navigation. At first sight there are only bad things about this folder, but still, the objective of the Temporary Internet Files is to speed up the loading of the Web pages. How does this folder speeds up the loading? Every time you open a web page, your browser “makes sure” that the website you visit and its illustrations are already in your Temporary Internet Files from a previous online visit. If your browser detects the website illustrations on your Temporary Internet Files folder, it will use the Internet connection only to check for web page updates since your last visit. In this case your browser loads faster the web page by using your hard disk not the Internet connection. Additionally, the Temporary Internet Files allow you to open web pages in offline mode. Temporary Internet Files affect your privacy because others can easily access your online surfing by opening your Temporary Internet Files. The bad thing is that even though these files are called “temporary” they cannot be deleted permanently.
You can delete the content of Temporary Internet Files folder following the next steps.
1. Windows Vista:
From Start menu, select Control Panel.
Click on the Internet Options icon.
In the Browsing History category, click Delete. Also, you can check the “Delete browsing history in exit” box.
In the Delete Browsing History dialog box, click the Delete Files button.
2. Windows XP:
From Start menu, select Control Panel.
In the Network Internet Connections window select Internet Properties.
In the Internet Properties window, click the General tab. In the Temporary Internet Files category, click Delete Files button.
3. Google Chrome
Launch Google Chrome and select Tools menu. Select Clear Browsing data.
Check Clear Browsing history/Clear download history/Empty the cache/Delete cookies box. At the end, click the Clear Browsing Data button.
4. Internet Explorer 8.0
Open Internet Explorer and click on the Safety button on the command bar. Select Delete Browsing History.
In the Delete Browsing History window, select Temporary Internet Files/Cookies/History etc and then click Delete.
5. Internet Explorer 7.0
Open Internet Explorer, click on the Tools button on the command bar, and select Delete Browsing History. In the Delete Browsing History dialog box, click the Delete Files button.
6. Mozilla Firefox 3.5
Open Mozilla and click on Tools button on the command bar.
Select Clear Recent History.
In the Clear Recent History dialog-box we have the Time range to clear button, where we click Everything.
Then, we click on Details button, and select Cache and, at the end, we click Clear Now.
7. Mozilla Firefox – older versions
Open Mozilla, select Tools, and click Options.
Select Privacy tab and click Settings.
Select Browsing History/Download History/ Saved From Information/Cache/Cookies and click OK.
Return to Options menu and click Clear Now.
8. Safari
Open Safari. Click on the Safari button on the command bar.
Select Empty Cache, and then click Empty.
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