Manually delete temporary browser files

In the course of their work, many programs, both application and system, create various temporary files. Surely many users found files with strange names in ordinary folders that look similar, say, to MS Word or Excel files. Especially often this happens after an unexpected light shutdown or suspension of the operating system, when the user is working with some document. This is one of the types of temporary files that were not correctly deleted due to a program error.

In Windows operating systems, there are entire folders intended solely for storing temporary information. In theory, at the end of a session with a system or program, these files should be deleted, but due to a number of circumstances, including due to program errors, this "garbage" accumulates in the system and sometimes starts to cause big troubles.

But the most "painful" case, in which the question arises, how to delete temporary files is the infection of the system by malicious programs. Folders with system "garbage" - a favorite place for the virus to hide its code. Therefore, when a computer is infected, the first step of the user is cleaning the folders with temporary files, especially the folders with the disk cache of the browser.

Theoretically, the ability to delete temporary files is regular for all modern browsers. As a rule, it is contained in the settings, in the "Advanced" section. They pressed the button, waited a little - that's all! But this situation is ideal. If the fact of infection you have no doubt, it is better to refrain from running programs that can access the network.

Another way to clean the disk cache is to manually delete temporary files. To find the folder where temporary Internet files are stored , you must first determine which operating system is installed on the computer, and which browser is used. All common browsers currently store their temporary files in one of the user profile folders. The location of the profile folder just depends on the operating system. For example, in Windows XP, the path to the folder with user profiles is% SystemDrive% \ Documents and Settings, where% SystemDrive% is the operating system disk (usually C :). In Windows Vista / Seven, user profiles are located in the% SystemDrive% \ Users folder. A subfolder with a user name is its profile in the operating system.

The easiest thing is with Internet Explorer, because the temporary files of this browser are located in the Local settings \ Temporary Internet FIles folder. The temporary files of other browsers, as well as the profile folders in general, are located in the Local settings \ Application Data folder . More precisely, in Windows Vista / Seven, the folder structure is different, but through the shortcuts system you can access new folders through old, familiar names. In this directory, the individual subfolders store the data of most applications. Accordingly, the Opera folder will contain Opera files, in the Mozilla folder - Firefox profile files, etc.

But when you remove the disk cache manually, you must be careful, because Third-party browsers, as a rule, store not only temporary files in profile folders, but also data about installed extensions, passwords, plug-ins, and lots of other useful information. Usually all unnecessary is in the cash folder.

When working with files through Explorer, you may encounter a problem when the Local settings folder can not be found. In fact, it is, but the system assigns it the attribute "Hidden" (Hiden). In order to get into it, you must either enable the Explorer to display system and hidden files / folders, or, if this fails (the consequences of the previous virus attack), try to go directly through the address bar . For example, by entering the path "C: \ Document and Settings \ User01 \ Local Settings \ Application Data" in the address bar, the user can immediately get into the Application Data subfolder of the Local Settings folder in User01's user profile.

And more - if you intend to "clean" the folders of another user on your computer, you will need administrator rights.