In my previous post, I covered the way to clear Firefox 3.0.7 browser cache. As Microsoft Internet Explorer (MS IE in short), is also used by a good number of surfers, I decided to write the steps for clearing the MS IE cache, version – 7, there on my PC.

The basics of cache and why it needs cleaning can be found at my previous post:

http://www.pctipstricks.com/how-to-clean-or-clear-cache-of-firefox-web-browser-on-your-pc/

In short, browser cache is the temporary space on your hard disk for storing web files so that your browser doesn’t have to fetch them again and again from the online site.

The two big reasons for clearing your Microsoft Internet Explorer browser cache normally are:

- Creating space on your hard disk (how much space will be freed after clearing the cache will depend on how much has been set by you, the recommended and default cache space set is 50 MB)

- Present site in the address bar not getting displayed properly (broken images and old content etc. due to cache stored at the time when the site had problems or there were connectivity issues).

The steps for clearing the MS IE 7 browser cache are (Don’t expect the word cache as available in Firefox, to be found in IE, instead look for Temporary Internet Files):

1. Open MS IE 7 browser. With MS IE 7 open in the current window, click on the Tools menu and then click on Internet Options (screenshot shows the Tools menu and click being made on Internet Options).

2. A window titled “Internet Options” appears. By default, the General tab (first rectangular button) is selected. Under “Browsing history” click on “Delete…”

3. In the new window, titled “Delete Browsing History”, click “Delete Files…” opposite to the Temporary Internet Files category.

4. A small window titled “Delete Files” appears requiring confirmation from you regarding deleting of Temporary Internet Files, Click on Yes.

5. Depending on the size of your MS IE 7 browser cache on your PC, it may take a second or few seconds to delete the cache. After the cache has been deleted (you may get an automatic screen showing that the cache files are deleted – only if cache files are large), close the respective MS IE 7 windows, i.e., “Delete Browsing History” and “Internet Options” by clicking on Close and OK respectively.

By completing the above steps, you would be able to clear or clean the cache (Temporary Internet Files – In Microsoft IE language). This means that you now won’t have any web pages stored in the Microsoft IE cache folder on your hard disk.

Now load the page with the valid URL in the address bar of Microsoft Internet Explorer (MS IE) 7  browser and a page with the current updated content (as of the time of loading of the page) would be served by the respective site. Probably, if the problem of broken pages display was due to issues with your PC’s MS IE 7 browser local cache, then now you will have proper images on the page displayed by MS IE 7.

Was this post of any help to you?

I look forward to your comments. Don’t be shy of letting me know your thoughts

Take care,

Rajesh

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This post tells you the procedure to clear off your computer’s Firefox web browser cache. There are different versions of Firefox web browser and I am going to cover the way for clearing the cache for Firefox 3.0.7. The reason being that my Dell Vostro 400 desktop has Firefox 3.0.7. However, if you have other Firefox web browser version, locating Cache and clearing it is all that is required! It’s easy.

Now what’s a browser cache and why should you clean or clear it?

The browser cache is a storage area in form of a folder on your PC for storing web site files (images and pages of the sites visited by you). The size of the web browser cache is typically few megabytes and  can be changed by you.

The web browser cache stores the most recent web pages visited by the surfer. It means that if your web browser cache has the capability to store 10 pages (just an example, it will depend on the cache space allocated for browser on your computer hard disk), and if you visit 50 web pages, only the latest 10 web pages will be stored in your browser cache.

The purpose of web browser cache – web files storage area, is to have local copy of the web pages visited by you on to you PC hard disk (subject to amount of hard disk space allocation as cache).

So,  when you visit the same web pages again via same browser, the content is taken from your computer browser local cache folder instead of downloading the content from the online sites. This results in saving of bandwidth and increase in surfing speed as less data to be downloaded due to its availability locally on your PC. I hope that I am making sense as usual in this post so far

Personally, I would clear browser cache due to the following reasons: 1. Broken web pages display.

If I surfed a site after clearing my browser cache and the site was having problem (due to some or other reason) then the browser will store the broken pages and will continue to display the same until the browser cache is cleared and the web page is refreshed.

2. Creating space on computer hard disk

The amount of web browser cache space if set very large, and not cleared for many days, can occupy huge amount of disk space. Thus, if I fall short of disk space, I would definitely clear off my computer web browser cache, in this case, Firefox browser – 3.0.7.

Here is the procedure to finally clear off your Firefox web browser (version 3.0.7) cache:

1. Launch Firefox Web Browser (If it is not opened)

2. Click on Tools and then on Clear Private Data (shown next):

3. In Clear Private Data window that appears now, make sure that the Cache box is checked.

4. Click on Clear Private Data Now

5. Refresh Firefox Web browser by clicking on “Reload current page” icon (circular arrow) as shown below:  Or, as you have cleared your Firefox browser cache, just press Enter after clicking at the end of the URL in the address bar. If there are no issues – with your’s ISP and the site that you are visiting, you should now see the most recent and working page of the site that probably was displaying problematic page from the old page stored in your web browser cache.

I hope that this post helps some of the surfers to clear their Firefox browser cache and see the recent web page for the site’s URL in their Firefox browser.

It was a basic tip but yet an important one. Sometimes, I have seen people struggling to get a proper view of a site as they simply keep on refreshing their browser again and again and seeing the same  problematic broken web page; the issue being with their PC local browser cache. Clearing the browser cache and then refreshing the browser again have served their browser a proper working web page.

You can also clear Firefox 3.0.7 cache by:

a). Pressing down Ctrl+Shift+Delete (hold these three keys in the given sequence), releasing these three keys when the browser window titled “Clear Private Data” browser appears.

b). Clicking on “Clear Private Data Now” (By default Cache is checked in the Clear Private Data window).

Let me know your comments about this post. Did it help you in any way?

Rajesh

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So, it’s my first technical post of year 2009 and a basic one but would still probably help some of my friends who are facing problems in logging to the secure, encrypted sites starting with https://

Why I decided to write this post is that I too faced the same problem when I tried logging to my bank site at http://abnamro.co.in/India/index.htm, I was able to see the front page -with http. But, when I clicked on NetBanking option, it
opened a new browser window in Microsoft IE 7 with URL: https://netbanking.abnamro.co.in/BANKAWAY?Action.RetUser.Init.001=Y&AppSignonBankId=ABN&AppType=corporate followed by some lines of error message below the URL that is shown next.

I was somewhat surprised because I had logged in to the same site a day before without any errors from the same PC of mine. But anyway, I decided to check this problem out and write it on pctipstricks.com so that it help others in troubleshooting it quickly.

To solve this problem of not able to login to the https – secure, encrypted site, I did the following steps:

1. Diagnosed Connection Problems

As shown above, the Microsoft IE 7 error page itself advised me to check for the Internet connectivity first. I checked this by doing some google search at http://www.google.co.in and surfing http://www.pctipstricks.com and found no issues.

I also clicked on the “Diagnose Connection Problems” of the Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 to just check what it diagnoses.

The tool worked fine and displayed what I had expected it to show – “No problem with this computer’s network or Internet connection”. The same Windows Network Diagnostics message is shown above. I clicked on Close to make it disappear.

What logically the above Microsoft diagnostic tool may be doing would be to ping the Internet site internally (without showing in the background) that can manually be done by the command:

ping www.microsoft.com or any other Internet URL of the main site

If it gets response, then the Internet connectivity is displayed as fine otherwise an error will be displayed.

Now if you get an error message that there is a problem with your Internet network connection and you are also not able to surf any sites (non https), then you must check your Internet connection. Otherwise, proceed to the second step to check why you are not able to open https sites as I did.

2. Clicking on “More Information” of the error window titled “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage” – the first screenshot of this post to diagnose other issues

I now clicked on “More Information” of the above screenshot to see what issues MS IE 7 diagnoses for me not able to login to https site.

Oh! Great! The “More Information” really gave me the clue to check SSL (Secure Socket Layer) and TLS (Transport Layer Security – advanced version of SSL) – both important protocols (rules of communication) used by banking sites for highly strong encryption and decryption of confidential data. Since, I was able to surf other non https sites, there was no problem with DNS etc., Also the front page of the banking site was getting opened (non https) and being a banking site, there was supposed to be a message regarding downtime (as it was there always earlier) which was also not displayed, hence I ruled that there is problem with the banking website of ABN AMRO India.

Now, I was sure that one of my relative had used my computer yesterday evening and by mistake, he might have disabled the SSL and TLS settings in my MS IE7 browser.

To check the SSL and TLS settings in Microsoft IE 7 browser, I went to the Tools (clicked) and then reached Internet Options (clicked) and got a multi-tab screen titled “Internet Options”. I then clicked on Advanced (as suggested in the above screenshot) tab and scrolled extreme down till bottom to check if SSL and TLS were disabled.

As shown in the next screenshot, I found that the SSL and TLS protocols were unchecked – disabled.

3. Enabling SSL and TLS protocol settings in MS IE 7

It was now obvious that the Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 browser at my end was not sending SSL and TLS protocol encrypted data to the banking site having server that required https – secured encrypted SSL communication (obvious as the site uses https in its URL).

I enabled SSL and TLS settings as shown in the next screenshot and then clicked on Apply (to commit the changes permanently without restarting the browser) and then on OK (to close the Internet Options dialog window). I also closed the “More Information” window (the third screenshot window) since I had now enabled SSL and TLS protocols by seeing the way to do so in MS IE 7.

Now, I checked if I was able to login to my banking site and yes, I saw the login screen that was not appearing earlier with url: https://netbanking.abnamro.co.in/BANKAWAY?Action.RetUser1.Init.001=Y&AppSignonBankId=ABN&AppType=corporate&enablekey=true. I entered the login details and clicked on Login and as expected I was able to login.

The banking site login screen starting with https that was earlier not appearing and instead an error – IE cannot display the webpage… as SSL and TLS were not enabled in MS IE 7 is shown next.

If you have other browsers and not MS IE 7 and you are facing login issue with https sites, then after checking your Internet connectivity you should check if the SSL and TLS protocols are enabled. The way of finding whether the SSL and TLS setttings in Mozilla Firefox 3.0.5 is:

- Click on Tools and then on Options… or Press Alt T,O (not zero)

- Click on Advanced (the last icon on right) and then on Encryption

- Under Protocols, make sure that Use SSL3.0 and use TLS1.0 boxes are checked

- Click on OK to close the Options dialog box

The following screenshot shows the SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 protocols enabled under Advanced – Encryption settings of the Firefox 3.0.5 version.

Note: Most of the confidential – banking, payment processor and shopping etc. sites should work with enabling of SSL only and won’t require TLS. Enable only SSL first and check if you are able to login.  If not, then check TLS only (TLS is new than SSL), uncheck SSL. BTW – There is no harm in enabling both the protocols. You can also check the “Requirements” listed for the client browser at the site in question or check their FAQ or contact their Customer Support if you are not able to login.

I hope again that these tips would help some of friends to sort out the similar login issue with https sites that require enabling SSL and TLS protocols at user’s/client’s Internet browser.

Did these tips help you in logging to the secure – https address sites? Let me know.

Take care,

Rajesh Mago

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