Cookies and cache – what’s the difference again?
I’m sure you’ve heard “have you tried clearing your cookies or cache?” – it’s almost the web version of “have you tried turning it off and on again?” (IT Crowd, anyone?!)
Let’s look at the differences between the two.
What are cookies?
Cookies are tiny files that remember useful information about your visit/s to a particular website, so the website can customise information for you. Cookies can track info such as:
- your preferences (like opening or closing tabs, accepting T&Cs, or closing alert boxes)
- your IP address
- the time and date you visit
- items you’ve added to a shopping cart
At Deakin Library, we use cookies for things like:
- displaying library outage notices
- hiding our cookie policy banner after you’ve accepted it
- tracking usage for Google Analytics
Cookies “live” for a certain length of time before expiring. You can choose to clear all of your cookies, or selectively clear them from a single website.
What are caches?
Caching stores parts of the webpages you visit on your computer, so the page loads quicker the next time you visit. Entire pages or page elements (such as images and videos) can be cached on your machine, and will remain there until you delete them.
Website caching sometimes means that you don’t see the most recent version of a webpage, because your browser is instead showing you the cached (older) version. You can force your browser to reload any page without using cache by hitting Ctrl+F5.
You can also clear your cache by following instructions from Digital Services.
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