Caching is the process of writing data to a selected area for subsequent quick access to it. Caching is used in many areas of the IT industry to provide optimization due to the accelerated reading of the most frequently used data, and, as a result, there is no need to download new data when it is requested. Most often, users are faced with the caching process when working in various web browsers, including the Yandex browser. And since the modern Internet provides a huge amount of various multimedia content, it will be useful to study the features of working with a cache of cached data: how to increase the cache in the Yandex browser or reduce its size, does it make sense to disable or even transfer it.
How browser caching works
In the case of Internet browsers, the cache storage is a directory on the disk that contains data from all pages visited by the user: site navigation icons, pictures and animations, and even multimedia content. Usually, caching is invisible to the user, but when watching videos on the temporary playback tape, you can notice a smooth or intermittent movement of the gray bar: it is at this moment that data is written to a special browser storage, that is, caching. This was done for the sake of the very optimization, in this case, to speed up access to video (for example, after closing the browser), reduce the load on computer resources and save Internet traffic.
But in cases of viewing various static information (for example, an image or text), the whole process remains behind the scenes, although optimization works here too: it is more advisable to extract the same image when you visit the page again from the storage than re-download from the network.
Depending on the types of the content that most often falls into the repository, its volume dynamically changes, but at the same time its maximum value is strictly limited (about 500 Mb). Otherwise, this would lead to a banal overflow of the disk. There is no need to force the cache to be cleared: the browser itself will erase the least relevant data to record new information.
At the same time, it is possible to change the size of the Yandex browser cache, it is worth changing it up or down, always focusing on the characteristics of a particular computer (volume and speed of the medium), as well as the type and bandwidth of the Internet connection. A large amount of storage requires disk space, and a small one can complicate the viewing of media content.
How to increase cache in the Yandex browser
By the means of the browser itself, this procedure is not feasible: for some reasons, developers of many browsers have come into fashion advanced settings to isolate from users. But there is a way, and it involves changing the properties of the program shortcut. You must do the following:
- Go to the browser shortcut (in the Start menu or on the desktop, for example). If the shortcut is missing, you must create it.
- Call the context menu, go down to the "Properties" item and select it.
- In the tab "Shortcut" on the line "Object" go to the editable field, at the very end of the recording.
- Having left the space, enter the command: -disk-cache-size = 2147483648. In this example, the used memory is equal to two gigabytes, but Chromium-browsers, to which Yandex belongs, accept only values in bytes. To accurately calculate the desired value, you can use any of the network services-converters.
- Confirm the changes by clicking "OK."
You can reduce the cache size in the same way.
Change of storage
In the properties of the shortcut, you can both increase the cache in the Yandex browser and change the storage location. If large storage is required, and there is no desire to spend space on the system disk, then it is permissible, if there is a second disk (logical or physical), transfer the cache there. To do this, you need to do the same steps as when increasing the cache, only the command will look different: -disk-cache-dir = E: \ CacheYandex (the drive letter and the exact one must be individual for the cache folder for each user).
The presence of an already introduced parameter regulating the user cache size does not affect the browser’s application when launching another one, as well as the location of the commands.
Disable caching
In the properties of the shortcut, the caching function is also disabled. To do this, just enter a command similar to increasing the cache, but set the minimum size to 1 or 10 kilobytes. This will prevent the browser from caching data.
Flush cache
You can clear the cache in the Yandex browser, as in any other based on Chromium, in the History menu by clicking the Clear History button. The browser will display a window in which it is necessary to mark the points of interest, where the cache zeroing is located.
Caching and SSD
SSDs are known for their high data access speed, significantly exceeding the performance of HDD. But users are misled by the information that each SSD memory cell has a limited resource. And since caching is, in fact, multiple rewriting of data, many persistently follow the advice of old publications on the network to turn off caching altogether or to keep storage away from SSDs, not to mention increasing the cache in the browser. Yandex, like any browser, in the first case, simply transfers the entire network load to the Internet channel (if its bandwidth and speed are high, then there are no problems), but transferring the cache to a slower medium negates all speed advantages flash drive. But, as practice shows, the memory of modern ssd-disks, even with increased load, is designed for a minimum of 8-15 years of operation. Therefore, transferring the cache from a solid-state drive to a regular HDD is not risking anything, it means deliberately reducing the performance of PC data exchange.
Having studied this manual and found out how to increase the cache in the Yandex browser, as well as perform other manipulations with the storage, you can make Internet navigation easier and more convenient.