Fewer Temp Files = Faster Computer
By
Staten Island, NY Posted: 3/21/2016 1:00:00 AM
Many people know that getting rid of temporary files is one of the quickest ways to speed up your computer. If that's the case, why are they there in the first place?
In the early days of the Internet, most people connected to the web using slow dial-up connections, so browser software would save a copy of every page you visited, including every picture and graphic on the page, so that the next time you visited the page, it didn't need to re-download them. It was a simple solution to a problem and it made the computer seem faster. What could go wrong?
The trouble is, browser software took a percentage of the drive to allocate to storing these "Temporary Files", and as drives got bigger, the number of temporary files increased dramatically. As Internet connections got faster, web sites became more complex, and they now download more pictures and other files than ever before.
Because of this many computers have millions of temp files slowing them down. This not only makes the hard drive work harder to store and retrieve these files, but it also makes things like scanning for viruses take hours to complete.
The funny thing about most temp files is that the original purpose was to speed things up by decreasing your need to re-download them if you visit the same sites later, however most web sites change so often that chances are if you re-visit the same site later in the day, chances are it will still need to download most of the page.
While there are a number of programs out there designed to delete your temporary files, the easiest solution is to not have them in the first place. Browser companies should be more conservative when it comes to temp files. The maximum storage for temp files should be a fraction of the default setting, and there's no reason why they should continue to save files for more than 24 hours. After that, they are not likely to be useful anyway, so why bother keeping them?
You can remove your temporary files without using any software just by looking for the temporary files / Internet Cache settings in your browser, then selecting an option to clear it. In addition, you may want to change the settings for how large your cache is, and how long it should keep history. Ideally, you can configure your browser for less than 100 MB of cache or less (I keep mine under 50), and configure your settings to clear after each day or even after you close the browser.
Joe Crescenzi, Founder
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