Optimal Browser Settings Disable File Caching:

Transcription

1 Optimal Browser Settings Disable File Caching: ICE Health Systems recommends that you disable any type of file caching in your internet browser, to avoid issues with storing older versions of documents and images when using the system. Caching is when your browsers saves information obtained from websites (such as webpages, images, documents, etc.) to help increase page load times. However, this feature can cause issues with an extensive online system like ICE Health Systems, where files are constantly being updated and changed, and can result in problems when using the system. Disabling the caching feature varies from browser to browser. This document explains the steps that are needed to disable caching using today s most popular browsers. Simply scroll the document down to the section that pertains to your browser program (that you will be using ICE Health Systems) and follow the steps outlined below: Internet Explorer 8 / 9: First, open the "Tools" menu; Press ALT + X or click the gear icon on the upper right-hand corner of the IE9 user interface and select Internet Options : Open the "Tools" menu by holding down the Alt key and pressing "X" or click on the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner and select Internet Options to access the options menu.

2 Now the Internet Options popup should appear and should be on the General Tab. Click on the Settings button under the Browser history section: Click on the Settings button under the Browsing history section of the General tab under Internet Options Another window titled Temporary Internet Files and History Settings will now pop open (see the next page for a screenshot) and you will need to set the option to Check for newer versions of stored pages to the first radio-button option labelled Every time I visit the webpage. Click OK at the bottom of the window and the window will close. This option is what will actually set Internet Explorer to reload every file for websites each time you visit them and will disable storing of the files locally and will avoid potential issues when using ICE Health Systems.

3 Set the Check for new versions of stored pages option to Every time I visit the webpage and click on the OK button. After changing the option as shown in the screenshot above and clicking OK, the window will close and you will be back on the Internet Options window. Now simply click OK at the bottom of the window (see screenshot on the following page) and this will save the option settings you just changed and close the Internet Options window altogether.

4 Simply click the OK button at the bottom of the window to save the recently changed options. These are all of the steps needed to be taken to disable file caching in Internet Explorer. Now you canuse ICE Health Systems as you normally would (or view any other webpage that you wish). To re-enable caching (if needed), simply follow these steps again but perform the opposite actions outlined above.

5 Firefox 8 / 9: Disabling cache in Firefox 8 / 9 is a little more complicated as this option has been moved to the hidden configuration menu for the browser. Please be careful not to change any other values when entering this menu as you may potentially cause issues with the browser itself. To disable file caching with Firefox 8 / 9, open the browser and type the following into the URL bar and press enter: about:config Open Firefox and type about:config into the URL bar and press enter. A prompt will appear, warning you about voiding your warranty, which is more of a play on words by the makers of Firefox to ensure that you are certain that you want to enter the configuration menu of the browser; Click I ll be careful, I promise! to continue. (see screenshot on next page for visual reference)

6 After typing about:config into the URL bar and hitting enter, Firefox will prompt you if you really do want to enter the configuration options menu; Simply click the I ll be careful, I promise! button to continue. Now you should see an entire list of configuration options appear in your browser window that pertain to how Firefox operates. Be extremely careful when viewing this page because you may cause further harm and instability with the browser by altering the wrong options. To disable file caching, you will need to filter through the list shown and disable the one that pertains to this option. Click on the Filter entry box that is just below the URL bar in Firefox and type in the following to search for the option related to disabling file caching: network.http.use (see screenshot on next page for visual reference)

7 Type network.http.use into the Filter search bar as shown above and this will bring up the option to disable file caching. Now you need to double click the network.http.use-cache option (it should be the only option displayed in the list) to change the value from true to false: Double click on the network.http.use-cache item in the list to change the option setting from true to false and close the browser to save the setting. Firefox will automatically save this change, so simply close the browser window now or navigate to whichever page you like and file caching will remain off. These instructions are all of the steps necessary to disable file caching in Firefox. Now you can use ICE Health Systems as you normally would (or view any other webpage that you wish). To re-enable caching (if needed), simply follow these steps again but perform the opposite actions outlined above.

8 Google Chrome: Disabling file caching in Chrome is a little different, in that they have hidden the option under the Developer Tools section of the browser. The following guide will explain how to perform these steps in the Google Chrome browser: First, you need to open the Chrome browser and click on the Wrench icon in the top-right corner of the browser. Next, highlight the Tools option and select Developer tools from the pop-out menu (or you can simply click CTRL-SHIFT-I): You can either press CTRL-SHIFT-I or click on the Wrench icon and select Developer Tools under the Tools pop-out menu. Now the Developer tools menu should appear, overtop of the current webpage you are viewing in Chrome, at the bottom of the browser window (as depicted in the screenshot on the following page).

9 Click on the Gear icon in the lower right corner of the page to open the Developer Tool s Settings page: Click the Gear icon in the lower right corner of the Developer Tool s window in Google Chrome to access the Settings menu. Now check off the Disable cache option under the Network section of the Developer tool s option window. Next, click the first circular X icon at the top of the Developer tool s popup window to close the settings menu and save your selection. Alternatively, press CTRL-SHIFT-I to close the window. Check the Disable cache option under the Network section of this options window and save/close it by clicking the first circular X button at the top of the Developer s tool window, or you can close it by also clicking CTRL-SHIFT-I. These instructions are all of the steps necessary to disable file caching in Chrome. Now you can use ICE Health Systems as you normally would (or view any other webpage that you wish). To re-enable caching (if needed), simply follow these steps again but perform the opposite actions outlined above.

10 Safari (Mac OS X): Disabling file caching in Safari under Mac OSX is probably the trickiest of all the browsers, since there isn t an option built into the browser that will remain permanent once the program is closed and re-opened. However, there is a way to disable file caching by locking the folder where the file cache is stored in Mac OSX, and it is relatively simple to complete. First, quit the program if the Safari browser is open as you will need to erase the cache file to continue. Next, you will need to go to the folder on your Mac OSX machine where the file cache for Safari is stored. Click anywhere on your Mac OSX desktop background to ensure the Finder program is active in the top menu bar and then click on the Go menu and select the Go to Folder option (or you can use the keyboard shortcut Shift-Command-G): Click anywhere on your desktop to make the Finder program active and choose Go to Folder option under the Go menu or use the Shift-Command-G keyboard shortcut instead to bring up the Go to Folder window.

11 Now a new Go to Folder window will appear, and you will need to type the following into the search box: ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari and then click on the Go button: Type ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari into the search box and click on the Go button to continue. Mac OSX will now bring up a finder window containing files under the directory that you entered in the above step. You should see a file named Cache.db. Click to select the file and then erase it by either pressing Command+Delete or by right-clicking the file and selecting Move to trash. Now that you ve deleted the old Safari Cache file, you ll need to create a new one so that it exists but won t be as large as the previous file nor contain any previously cached web pages and files. Simply click on the Safari icon in the dock at the bottom of the screen to load the program, and then quit it again by pressing Command+Q or selecting Quit under the File menu of Safari. The Cache.db file should re-appear under the folder window you opened in the previous step, which is exactly what we want to happen. The file needs to exists or you could potentially get an error message when launching Safari if it does not; Again, we removed it in the previous step to ensure that any cached websites or files are deleted. The next step is to actually lock the ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari folder so that Safari is unable to cache (save) data to this Cache.db file permanently.

12 To lock the ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari folder, click on the Gear icon in the top menu bar of the com.apple.safari folder window and select the Get Info option: Click on the Gear icon of the com.apple.safari folder window and select the Get Info option. Another window will now appear on your desktop containing information regarding the com.apple.safari folder. To lock this folder and prevent Safari from storing information to the Cache.db file, simply click on the checkbox for the Locked option under the General section in the middle of this window and then click on circular red icon in the top left of the window to save this change. Now you can close the com.apple.safari folder window by clicking that same circular red icon in the top left of the window. These instructions are all of the steps necessary to disable file caching in Safari with Mac OS X. Now you can use ICE Health Systems as you normally would (or view any other webpage that you wish). To re-enable caching (if needed), simply follow these steps again but perform the opposite actions outlined above.