Windows XP Tips 6 - Clearing Cached Files & Cookies Daily
Welcome back!
One of the things that can help XP run smoother is to regularly get rid of temp files. Ideally you should do this on a daily basis.
Start by emptying Recycle Bin. Right click on it and select "Empty recycle bin", answer "Yes" to the question that pops up.
Clearing cookies isn't going to save you a whole lot of space but it WILL enhance your privacy by limiting the ability of websites to track you. *NOTE* Clearing cookies will also have the effect of logging you out of any site you're still logged into. Deleting cached files will usually save anywhere from 10 to 50 or more megabytes of space depending on your browser settings.
IE users:
Click on Start | Control Panel If you're looking at the "new" style control panel click "Switch To Classic View" (you can change back later if you like). Next click "Internet Options" and a properties box will appear. Click "Delete Cookies" and then Click OK. Next Click "Delete Files" make sure that "Delete All Offline Content" is checked and click OK. Finally set "Days to keep pages in history" to 7 days and click OK. It's more than likely that if you haven't needed it for a week then you're probably not going to.
Another step that a lot of people miss is to empty the Windows prefetch folder. Double click on My Computer and navigate to "C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch" Click Edit | Select All and hit the delete key. A pop up box will appear, click Yes and then you can close that window. (note: you ought to empty the recycle bin after doing this)
Firefox users:
Click Tools | Options, then in the "private data" section of the Privacy tab click "Settings". In the box that appears make sure that "Cache", "Cookies" and "Offline Website Data" are checked and set the other items however you prefer. *Note* If you use Firefox's password manager you'll probably want "Saved Passwords" UN-Checked!! When you're done, click OK on the settings box and click Ok on the Options box.
Now any time you want (I recommend daily) to clear your Cache, Cookies and offline website files, just click Tools | Clear Private Data and all of those items be gone.
Technorati Tags: save space, clear cookies, privacy, clear prefetch, clear cache, windows xp, recycle bin, ie, firefox, xp tip
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Hmm, this is good tips ;)
Hey really good information, i also have some problem with these bad cookies, but as per you advice i had clicked ‘delete all offline content’ , with all useless things my saved passwords also gone in internet explorer and the otherproblem is cookies in the other browsers not gone (opera & Firefox(ie is my default browser))…….
First, since I only use IE on VERY rare occasions I didn’t know that deleting cookies would nuke saved passwords. Yet another reason why IE is a broken design.
Second, In order to delete cookies for Firefox you need to follow the directions for Firefox which I included in the post.
Opera has it’s own “delete private data” function that I believe is on the tools menu and there *should* be somewhere to set what private data gets deleted when you use that function however I’m kinda sketchy about that since I haven’t used Opera since 2002 or so and it’s changed since then. Perhaps an Opera user could comment with better details.
Thanks for the tips sir. Some time, I want delate the address I have visited, because I dont want my family or friend know my address I have visited. thanks
It’s great to meet experts who are willing to share both their experiences and knowledge to other people.
I’m hardly an “Expert”. I’m just sharing stuff that I’ve learned over the years.
Do these things really make your PC run faster or does it just free some space on the disk? I hate deleting my cookies, because all the sites that recognize you as a regular visitor stop doing that.
You have to start all over again, entering the dozens of user names and passwords.
.-= Luc J´s last blog ..Free PC Backup Solution – The Software Is Already Installed On Your PC =-.
Actually (with firefox at least) there’s no such need at all if you use it’s password manager. Deleting cookies does not affect the password manager at all. I’m certain of this because I delete cookies frequently and firefox’s password manager has retained it’s data for years, though several upgrades and even having ported my firefox profile to another OS and back.
As for the space or speedup effect of deleting cookies. Unless you’re stuck with an ancient 1gb or less hard drive space is probably not the issue because standard text cookies can only be a max of 4kb each. While Clearing out cookies will have some effect on how fast or smoothly your browser functions speed is not the main issue with cookies, Privacy is.
You see, advertisers and quite a few websites use cookies not only to recognize you and save your settings, they also use them to track your browsing habits and build profiles that they then use to serve advertising and build surfing trend data by combining the surfing habits of visitors into a large database.
I personally see this as an invasion of privacy and therefore set Firefox to delete cookies every time I close the browser.
I use CCleaner to clean up everything in one go. It’s really easy to download and use (got it from filehippo.com)
You can also get it from http://www.ccleaner.com/download/downloading
windows xp was 2 ago, though I much preferred it over my current vista. I\’m waiting for my free upgrade to windows 7, which I think is suppose to be more like xp. got my fingers crossed.