CLEARING THE BROWSER CACHE


Caching is something that happens automatically to make browsing the web faster for you. As mentioned in a previous section of this chapter, web pages and pictures are stored locally on your handheld so if you request them again they do not have to be retrieved from the Internet each time. Obviously, all these things take up storage space on your handheld.

If you use the browser a lot, you should periodically clear the browser cache so that your handheld does not run out of storage space. The browser cache is cleared when your device is reset, but hopefully this doesn't happen often. Instead, you should use the menu items in the General Properties option group. You can open this group by clicking the Options menu item then selecting the General Properties and clicking the trackwheel again.

There are actually two caches on your handheld, the content cache and the cookie cache. There are three menu items that can be displayed when you display the menu. The menu items to clear the caches are only displayed if the caches contain some data. The Clear Content Caches menu item is used to clear the downloaded content of web pages, including images. This is where the majority of the data is stored. The Clear Cookies Cache menu item is used to clear any cookies that have been received. The last menu item, Clear Raw Data Cache, will clear both the content and cookie caches.

note

Cookies are small bits of information that can be sent by a website so when you return to the same website they can read the cookies again. Cookies are generally small and don't take up a lot of storage space.


Version 4.0 of the handheld software makes it easier to clear the caches by adding a new group under the Options screen called Cache Operations. Selecting this option group shows a screen with up to three buttons. The buttons are Clear History, Clear Cookies, and Clear Content Cache, as shown in Figure 8.18. Each button is shown only if the cache contains some data that can be cleared.

Figure 8.18. The new Cache Operations screen where you can clear the caches.


You should clear the caches periodically, especially if you use the browser frequently; every few weeks is a good guideline. However, if you begin to notice messages being deleted automatically, it is time to clear the caches.



Mobile Guide to BlackBerry
Mobile Guide to BlackBerry
ISBN: 0789733439
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 146
Authors: Bill Foust

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