[DM-MUG] a question about safari?

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 2:59 PM, Geoffrey Stevens <studias at msn.com> wrote:

>  Hi,
>
> It is good to *"Reset Safari"* or to *"empty cache"* ever so often? Do I
> lose anything?
>
>
>

Regarding "empty cache" I think it's unnecessary unless you're continually
low on disk space or you're concerned about someone using your computer to
see what sites you visit.

Disks are 100 times faster than even a very fast Internet connection. Safari
keeps files you've accessed over a standard, non-secure connection on the
hard drive. Websites you've visited over a secure connection (like your bank
or whatever) are not cached to the disk.

Next time you visit a website that you visited in the past, if the file is
already saved in your cache then it will make the page load faster because
some parts of the page that haven't changed will not be loaded over the
relatively slow connection.

On older systems hard drives had a problem called "fragmentation" that
slowed your computer if you used it a lot. Newer hard drives no longer get
fragmented unless the disk is nearly full. Caching in the old days would
cause excess fragmentation, but this isn't a problem any more.

If someone sat down at your computer while you were away and viewed the
files relating to websites you've visited would you suffer some type of loss
(emotional, financial, etc)? If so, and the chance of someone sitting at
your computer and poking around is high enough that you are concerned then
you may want to set your browser to clear it often. If your computer is
often full then go into preferences and change the "Remove history items" to
a short period of time (one day, or one week).

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode, skype, linkedin, identi.ca and twitter
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