Have you ever heard of a “hard” refresh? Do you know what a cache is? These are a few things you’ll hear us at Orbit say from time to time and although it all may seem like technical lingo it’s very important to understand what it all means.
Caching is when your browser stores information from a website. When you are online, your browser wants to make things easier and faster for you by storing information such as website images, styles and text. You know when you go to a website for the first time and it takes a while to load? Well the second time you go to that website it will load a lot faster.
While your cache is usually quite helpful when you are looking round on the Internet, it can cause frustrations if you are trying to update your website. Sometimes, when the browser is looking for changes, it misses little updates and you see the old, outdated version of the page. Since the browser’s cache expires after a certain amount of time (depending on how often you use the Internet and your computer’s settings), you can always wait for a full reload of the website or you can force the browser to re-download the entire page, including the cached material. Forcing your browser to re-download the information on a website is called a “hard” refresh.
A hard refresh can be done with the help of your keyboard. Hold the “Shift” key and click the circle refresh button next to your toolbar. If you’re quick with your hands, try these combinations.
PC: Ctrl + F5
Mac: Cmd + Shift
If these commands don’t work, you can also try completely clearing all of your browser’s cache. Or give me a call here at Orbit.
