What are the implications when web pages are cached?

The computer cache is the term used to store the temporary information of applications. Some applications such as browsers save these temporary files in a file on the hard drive of our computer called Temp, this folder contains files of web pages that have been previously visited as images, JavaScript and CSS libraries that are required on that web. Storing all this data in cache presents a great advantage for the user since it can increase browser performance and decrease the load time when visiting a website since you do not have to download some files that are already in the cache . When the user visits a website, the browser first accesses the cache files in search of the website, thus avoiding to download them again from the server, if the browser finds the files it will proceed to show the client the data that it has stored first and the rest will proceed to ask them to the web server, with this method we streamline the loading of web pages.

The storage of this data in cache in the hard disk of our computer can use space in the hard disk, that is why some user or cleaning programs like «CCleaner» clean these folders every so often freeing up space. The cache memory can be configured to delimit the size to be assigned for the storage of said files or simply that no data is stored.

Web developers often disable the browser’s cache memory to see the changes made when developing a website and force the browser to update the entire web page. There are some techniques to force the browser to download the visited website again. These techniques are often necessary when the browser refuses to access the new and updated content of the servers, a force update is achieved by pressing the control buttons and F5 simultaneously on a keyboard or by simply erasing the entire browser cache.

It should be noted that when a browser stores the data of a website that has been visited in the cache, the user should consider that anyone who has access to said computer can access said files only by opening the Temp folder. This security problem can be aggravate if we visit centers where computers are shared with the same user sessions, in these cases it is advisable to eliminate the cache after its use.