A hard refresh is made for clearing the browser cache for a specific page. By doing this, the browser will load the most recent version of the chosen page, ensuring a correct display for the web page. Keep in mind that this is not the same as clearing your browser’s cache for every web page, which could be needed in different situations, such as fixing browser errors and amplifying the browser’s performance.
What is browser cache?
Your browser has a special local storage section allocated to temporarily save web information from visited web pages. This storage section is called browser cache. Without this mechanism, the browser would work much more slowly as it would need to download web data each time you revisit a website. This data includes different scripts, images and fonts that can cumulate and therefore affect the smooth running of your browser.
Browser cache advantages
The main important reasons on why browser caching is important are:
-Quick loading time of a web page: as mentioned above, when a page’s data is cached, the browser will remember all the information it needs in order for that specific page to load smoothly, therefore the time needed for a web page to load will decrease, helping the user to have a good experience
-Quick server loading: when revisiting a website, the browser has already downloaded all the files needed for the website’s display and functioning, hence it won’t need to download all over again information that has already been downloaded once, that information being temporarily stored in your browser.
-Reduced bandwidth: Caching reduces the amount of information that’s transferred between the browser and the server, so it’s consuming less bandwidth.
-Improved SEO: Browser cache also brings benefits to your SEO resolutions, as search engines will show on the first results websites that are user-friendly with low bounce rates and that are taking a short amount to load.
-Lower Costs: Ultimately, all the advantages mentioned above will help you make savings because you don’t need more servers to host your website.
Browser cache disadvantages
-Inconsistent cache: sometimes it can happen for a website to have inconsistent cache stored in the browser. When that happens, the users can get unwanted errors and the information they are searching for may not be up-to-date, thereby the credibility of a website will be affected.
-Could compromise the user’s privacy and security: because it stores information about the websites the users are visiting, it can compromise their privacy. Even though this happens, nowadays browsers have incognito modes that will not store cached data or browsing history.
-Could bring issues with corrupted or outdated cached data: these problems have a great impact on the well-functioning of a website. Luckily, most websites will ask you to clear your cache to resolve these kind of problems.
-Improperly cache validation: will make your website showcase wrong information which can have bad outcomes when it comes to income. For example, if you own an e-commerce website, the users might not be able to see the products that are on sale, or they won’t be aware of any deals you are trying to offer.
Why it’s important to do a hard refresh
Performing a hard refresh means the browser will not use any cached data and will re-download every image file, text file or any script files of a page. Sometimes cached data can generate unwanted errors because the browser is downloading an outdated version of a file, be it a CSS, JavaScript or HTML file. Web developers delete cache and do a hard refresh in order for the browser to show the latest version of a page, by delivering the newest modifications made on the server.
How to perform a hard refresh on each browser
1.Chrome
For Windows/Linux users: hold CTRL and press F5 on the keyboard or
hold CTRL and click the “Reload this page” button.
For Mac users: hold Cmd and Shift and press R on the keyboard or
hold Shift and click the “Reload this page” button.
2.Firefox
For Windows/Linux users: hold CTRL and press F5 on the keyboard or
hold CTRL, Shift and press R on the keyboard.
For Mac users: hold Shift and press R on the keyboard or
hold Cmd, Shift and press R on the keyboard.
3.Safari
Hold the option and cmd key and then press the E key on the keyboard.
4.Microsoft Edge
For Windows/Linux users:hold CTRL and press F5 on the keyboard or
hold CTRL and click the “Reload this page” button.
For Mac users:hold Shift and click the “Reload this page” button or
hold Cmd, Shift and press R on the keyboard.
Some browsers have one more method to perform a hard refresh: open Developer Tools, right click on the “Reload this page” icon, and you will be presented with 3 options: Normal Reload, Hard Reload and Empty Cache and Hard Reload.
Normal Reload
Performing a normal reload will do the same thing as pressing F5. This will use the cache but revalidate everything during the page load, looking for "304 Not Modified" responses. If the browser can avoid re-downloading cached JavaScript files, images, text files, etc., then it will.
Hard Reload
This action forces the browser to re-download every JavaScript file, image, text file, etc.
Empty Cache and Hard Reload
Doing a hard reload will force the browser to re-download everything. However, if the page makes any downloads via JavaScript after performing the reload, then these might still use the cache, which is where emptying the cache helps because it ensures that cached files will not be used after the page is reloading.
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