IE8 Cache Behavior
Your browser may not spy on you, but unless you clear your cache, a record of your surfing activity exists on your hard drive. As you visit websites, IE8 stores temporary Internet data in a file called the cache. This caching behavior can help improve your browsing experience even though the file consumes hard drive space.
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IE8 Caching
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Launch IE8, navigate to a website and several things happen that you do not see. A Web server receives your request for a Web page, then sends it back and IE8 stores the information it receives in a file on your hard drive. This file is the IE8 cache. It not only contains the HTML needed to produce the Web page you see, but every object that appears on the page, as well. If the page contains 10 images, IE8 stores those 10 images in the cache.
Cache Benefits
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Suppose you use IE8 to visit the White House's home page. If the browser did not cache that page and its contents, it would have to ask the Web server to resend everything whenever you revisited the site. With the caching active, all IE8 has to do is retrieve the cached data from your hard drive and use it to create the page you see. This behavior saves time and can save you money if your Internet Service Provider charges for bandwidth usage.
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Managing the IE8 Cache
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Over time, this file can grow as Web servers on other sites send back data that winds up on your hard drive. You can delete the data in your cache by clicking "Fix it" at Microsoft's support page or by clicking your Start menu button, and then clicking "Control Panel." When that opens, access the Internet Options page by clicking "General" and selecting the "Delete" option in the Browsing History section. IE deletes the cache's contents and frees up the disk space the cache consumed. This process may take several minutes, depending on the size of your cache.
Changing Caching Behavior
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You are not at the mercy of your browser's default caching behavior. You can customize it by launching IE8, clicking "Internet Options," and then clicking the "Settings" button located in the Browsing History section of the Internet Options window that opens. This window allows you to click one of the options listed that control how often IE8 checks for newer versions of Web pages. Click the "Never" option to prevent IE8 from caching data. You can also type a new value into the "Disk Space to Use" text box to restrict the disk space the browser uses to store the cache. The recommended value is 50MB to 250MB.
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