Frequently Asked Questions
BROWSERS - CACHE
Web caching is the caching of web documents (e.g., HTML pages, images) to reduce bandwidth usage, server load, and perceived lag. A web cache stores copies of documents passing through it; subsequent requests may be satisfied from the cache if certain conditions are met or set within your browser.
CACHE SETTINGS
If you're using IE
Go to Tools > Internet Options.
Under the General tab (which should be the first tab you see), there is a section called Temporary Internet Files, with the description Pages you view on the Internet are stored in a special folder for quick viewing later.
Right under that there are three buttons. Delete Cookies, Delete Files and Settings.
Click on Settings.
A dialog box will pop up which says Check for newer versions of stored pages:
Select Every visit to the page (the first option).
Click OK for this dialog box, and Apply for the Internet Options window.
All set.
If you're using Firefox
Go to Tools > Options.
Under the Privacy tab (which is denoted by a yellow lock icon on the left sidebar), there is a list of options for which you can change the privacy settings.
The last option in this list says Cache. Click on the little + icon.
Where it says Use up to: [ box ] KB of disk space for the cache, change the number in the box to 0 (default is 50000 KB).
Click OK.
WEB PAGE DESIGN
You can add the following meta tags to force the browser not to cache a page.
<meta http-equiv="CACHE-CONTROL" content="NO-CACHE" />
<meta http-equiv="PRAGMA" content="NO-CACHE" />
or even use the refresh meta tag
<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="120;URL=index.html">
for php files use
header("Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate");
header("Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0", false);
or
header("Last-Modified: " . gmdate("D, d M Y H:i:s") . " GMT");
These are automatic techniques, if you want to give the user an option to reload a page themselves, use these;
<A HREF="javascript:history.go(0)">Click to refresh the page</A>
or this
<FORM>
<INPUT TYPE="button" onClick="history.go(0)" VALUE="Refresh">
</FORM>
