While emptying your browser’s cache may not be something that you need to worry with often or at all there are times when clearing it can be helpful. The Empty Cache Button extension lets you have instant on-demand cache clearing in Firefox.

Some reasons why you might want or need to clear your browser’s cache:

• Clear out older (or out of date) versions of images, etc. from your favorite websites
• Free up disk space
• Clearing the cache may help fix browser behavior issues
• Help protect privacy (i.e. images, etc. displayed within a personal account)

Before

For our example we loaded three webpages in order to add content to our browser’s cache.

Using the “CacheViewer” we were able to easily see the contents of our browser’s cache after the webpages finished loading. What if you need to clear your cache immediately without restarting your browser (if the options are set to empty the cache on browser exit)?

Note: CacheViewer is available via a separate extension and can be found here.

Empty Cache Button in Action

Once you install the extension all that you need to do is right click on any of your browser’s toolbars and select “Customise”. Drag the “Toolbar Button” to an appropriate location in your browser’s UI and you are ready to go.

To clear your browser’s cache simply click the button…that is all there is to it.

When the cache is empty you will see this small message window appear in the lower right corner of your “Desktop”.

Opening up the “CacheViewer” again shows that everything has been cleared out. Terrific!

Conclusion

If you ever find yourself needing to clear your browser’s cache immediately then the Empty Cache Button extension provides an easy way to do so without restarting your browser (if the options are set to empty the cache on browser exit).

Links

Download the Empty Cache Button extension (Mozilla Add-ons)