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Your question led us to whatis.com, a friendly source of definitions for computer, Internet, and telecommunications technology. There we learned that cache, pronounced cash, is a temporary storage place inside your computer for frequently or recently accessed data. We also learned that there are different kinds of cache. For instance, your web browser stores recently visited web pages in a cache directory on your hard disk, so that you can return quickly to the page without requesting it from the original server. When you hit the "Reload" button, your browser compares the cached page with the current page out on the network, and updates your local version if necessary. You can customize the size of your browser's memory cache and
disk cache to optimize your web surfing experience. Go to "Preferences" in the Edit menu of your Netscape Navigator browser; click on "Advanced," then go into "Cache." From this control panel you can also clear or empty the browser caches in order to free up space and, hopefully, improve the data transfer rate. Make similar adjustments on Microsoft's Internet Explorer by going to "Internet Options" at the bottom of the Tools menu. At PC Webopaedia we learned about two other types of caches used in personal computers. Memory cache (or cache memory) is a portion of computer storage that consists of high-speed RAM (random access memory), specially designated to facilitate quick retrieval of data by the computer as it processes information.
Finally, there's disk cache. This uses files on our hard drive to store recently accessed data, again, in an effort to improve performance speed. (Your browser cache is a subset of this kind of cache.) Caching strategies are continually being explored and refined by programmers and chip designers to enhance machine performance.
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