People who use smartphones, laptops, Computers may have seen this word cache. But what is this cache? What does this thing do?
You might have clean these caches accidentally, or there are situations where you have to clean them, but you don’t know if it is important or not.
This article will give you enough information you need to know.
What is cache?
Cache, which is pronounced as “Cash,” is a storage where temporary data from software are kept.
What are these temporary data?
By data, it means the background image, all the icons, and the structure of the website and app.
How does cache work?
When you open a new software/app or go to a new website, the cache collects the data from those apps and websites and saves them on your device’s local storage.
So, the next time you open the software/app or go to a website, it will take less time and less internet.
The reason is, it doesn’t have to download all the background data again, instead, it will load those data from the cache where it saved them from the first visit.
All the software and hardware use cache to give you the best effective performance on the device. Cleaning cache can also help you solving Chrome Browser’s Clear The DNS Resolver Cache data and Chrome Web Browser’s Flush Socket Pools issues effectively.
Hardware.
Besides software, the hardware also uses caches. Computers/laptops and smartphones CPU, RAM, and HDD/SSD use caches.
Let’s explain it with the easy one.
SSD is really fast, so you might not notice this but, an HDD user will notice.
If you ever clean your pc using a tool like CCleaner, you will see that after the cleaning is done, if you open a folder that has pictures or videos, the thumbnail of those pictures or videos takes time to load.
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But the second time you open that folder, it doesn’t take time to load those thumbnails.
Because the thumbnails were stored when the first time you visited that folder. The second time, it didn’t need to make those thumbnails rather it just loaded them from the cache.
Just like HDD, RAM and CPUs use caches to run your software/apps faster.
Software.
Normally laptop and computer users will see browser cache while cleaning history. For smartphone users, you will also see this mostly while you go to app info.
All the software use their own caches.
Browsers use their own cache to store login, HTML, and all the other website data. So, when you go to the website again, it doesn’t have to download the data again.
It will load all the data from the cache, which will make the website loading much faster.
For example, you may have noticed this too. When you go to a website and visit some of the pages of that website and then, when you click on the back button to go to the previous page, it will take less time than it took to load the first time.
If you go to the history of your browser and click on a recently closed page, it will take less time than the first time.
All because it stored the data in the cache at first.
All the other software/app uses cache to perform better and faster.
UPs and Downs of cache
UPs:
- Caches make the software/app and the performance of our device faster.
- They take less data to visit websites that we visit frequently.
- Even if we lost connection, sometimes we can still go back to the previous pages of a website.
- It decreases the network traffic cause your app or browser doesn’t have to load all the files every time. It will only load the new ones.
- If your internet becomes slow, websites that you normally use might provide you the same performance as they did during high-speed internet.
Downs: Though it is good, sometimes it can cause problems too.
- After some time, you will see that caches take a lot of storage of your device. Most of the app caches don’t take much storage but, the browser one takes a lot as time goes by.
- If there is an error in one of the stored cache files, it will cause problems running the software/app.
- It can cause network problems.
- It can sometimes prevent you from visiting a website if the websites get an update,
Should you clean your cache?
Yes, you should. Every month you should clear the catches. This way it will free up some space and help your device work perfectly with the up-to-date software/apps.
It’s like maintenance for your device. This way it will save you from the problems caused by the caches.
Caches save the data of the programs that you use most of the time. But the programs will change as time goes by. So. if you clean the cache, it will be able to save new data from the new program that you start using.
There are a lot of ways of cleaning caches on the internet. Use those methods to clean the caches of your device.
