Browser Caching

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What Does Browser Caching Mean?

Browser caching is a technique in which part or most of recently used Web pages and data are temporarily stored in a Web browser. It is used to increase a user’s browsing speed by locally downloading Web page components in the browser cache.

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Techopedia Explains Browser Caching

Browser caching works by examining each Web page visited by a user and identifying its parts/components that can be saved offline. The browser does not necessarily store the entire Web page, but stores components that are not likely to be changed on a frequent basis.

For example, images, logos, banners and CSS/Java code rarely change. Browser caching stores this data in the browser cache, so that once the user revisits that Web page, there is no need to redownload such components. This results in a faster Web page load, as a good proportion of the data is already stored in the user’s local system.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.