How to check that a particular web page is being pulled from
the web server and not your browsers cache: 11/01/00

A cache is an area of memory or hard disk space that is specifically reserved for the purpose of holding newly acquired information that has a high probability of being needed again in the very near future. Here's an example of how a browser cache works. When accessing a web site, it takes a certain period of time for it to load completely. After loading, you surf to another location. Then you decide to go back to the previous web site but when you return, it appears on your screen in a mere fraction of the time it took to load the first time. You have just experienced the browser cache in action.
As you surf, the browser automatically stores text, graphics and other data from pages you visit into the cache. The idea is that if you decide to revisit a page that is already in the cache, the browser will pull the data from your hard drive rather than download it over again. Since data from your hard drive can be accessed at far greater speeds than from your modem's connection, it appears on your screen much more quickly. How many pages of information that can be stored depends on the size of the cache you set from the browser's preferences menu. When your cache buffer or file is full, or if you haven't pulled up a particular page for awhile, it's automatically purged.
Sometimes a page's content will be changed on the web server and your browser pulls up the old version from your cache. Though infrequent, this happens periodically (but usually only when you have pulled up the page just before a change was made on the server and then (in close proximity again), shortly after the page was changed on the server. Though your browser will take care of this problem itself (when your cache file becomes full and auto deletes the content), there may be times that you need to be check a particular page.
If you think a change may have occurred on the web server page and want to be sure the version you are pulling is not from your browser's cache - do the following:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7

From the IE toolbar at top hit View and then Refresh

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 & 6

Hold down the "shift" key and click on "Reload Icon "

Netscape (from an old 4.7x version):

Hold down the "shift" key and click on "Reload"

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