Cleaning up Your Internet Browser

Does your computer seem more sluggish than it used to? Have you already scanned your computer to get rid of spyware and it still seems slow? Here’s another tip to give your computer a little more pep. Deleting cookies, history and saved files from your browser can help recover some of the space your computer uses to “think”.

When you surf the Internet, you may have noticed that some websites load faster than others, particularly ones you visit often. What is actually happening is that to make the experience faster, browsers (like Internet Explorer and Firefox) use a part of your hard drive to cache some files from those websites; so when you visit that site again, those pictures aren't downloaded again but pulled from your cache. The only thing that needs to be downloaded, then, are the changes since the last time you visited.

Try starting your browser sometime when you are not connected to the Internet and after clicking the “Work Offline” button on the “Connect to” dialogue box, and then the “Stay Offline” button on the next pop-up box, type in the address of a website you go to often. You'll see how much is already on your computer. Although this is generally a good thing, as your computer starts to fill up, these steps to help you “flush your cache” may give it back its pep.

Start – Control Panel – Internet Options (or in Internet Explorer, click on Tools – Internet Options) which brings up this screen

Concentrating on the Temporary Internet files section of this window:

Cookies are small files that some sites put on your computer usually without your knowledge. They were designed to be helpful. A classic example is a webmail site that always remembers you so that you don't have to sign in again every time. Not all cookies are benign, though, and clicking on the Delete Cookies button will rid you of all of them.

Clicking on the Delete Files button will erase all those small files saved on your hard drive (as described above).

 

You shouldn’t have to change the size of the cache unless your hard drive is always running out of room. If you want to reduce your cache size, click on the Settings button. If you are not sure, feel free to contact me.

 

The Clear History button is used to delete any record of what sites you have visited. This can actually be helpful if you want to be sure you are seeing the latest changes to websites you go to, as sometimes the above cache system fails and you are only seeing what you've seen before.

 

To save your favorites from Internet Explorer, from the opening screen click on File then Import and Export

which runs an easy-to-follow wizard to create a file with all your favorites in it.

 

 

 

 

 

An update from a few weeks ago: AVG antivirus changed their free page to this address for those units in Europe who were having a hard time downloading the free version: http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php

 

 

Michael Shalkey

Part 1 Email Maintenance
Part 2 Protect your Computer from Viruses and Spyware
Part 3 Update Windows and your programs
Part 4 Cleanup in preparation for Backup
Part 5 Backup (and Restore)
Part 6 Maps from Google

 

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