If you are a novice user, you might have seen some peculiar error messages when you start browsing  the web in Firefox. Some of the common error messages may be:

– You are using an older version of Java. Please clear your browser’s cache or restart the browser.
– The screen goes white and the web pages never load however hard you try
– Some sites don’t open at all, restarting the system does not solve the problem either.
– You have to activate browser cookies for the website to work.

The above problems occur when you have not cleared the browser cache for a long time.

What is a browser Cache or Cookie ?

A Browser cache is nothing but a folder in your computer where temporary internet files are saved. This is because when you visit a website, some files and images are downloaded in your comuter to speed up web browsing. The next time you open the same website, the images are files are fetched from the browser cache and this results in quicker loading of websites.

A cookie is a small file used by a website that can have various purposes. A cookie can be used to track your location, to serve advertisements or may be authenticate your login information.

Browsing history is a list of websites which you have visited recently or visit quite often. All browsers including Firefox, Internet explorer, Google Chrome and Safari save browsing history of websites so that if you forget the actual address of a webpage, you can use the browsing history to navigate to the page in question.

Jayanta pal, one of our readers asked the following question via Email:

I am using Firefox and want a simple way to clear all browser cache on exit. This is because when I return for internet surfing at a later time, I want all settings to be refreshed and don’t want to automatically be loggedin to certain websites. Is there any scripts or plugins which I can use ?

Great Question, in fact I have answered this problem several times to my friends. Here is the answer:

How to Manually Clear Firefox Cache, Browsing History, Cookies and Active Logins

To manually clear Firefox cache, download history, browsing history, active logins and site preferences, follow the simple steps mentioned below:

1. Open Firefox, go to Tools and select “Options”

2. Go to the “Privacy” tab and select the option “Firefox will never remember History”. Then clickthe link “You may also clear all current history”

3. You are done. Firefox will clear the browser cache, delete all cookies, temporary internet files and site preferences (active logins). You do not need to restart the browser for the changes to take effect.

Related: Manually clear Firefox cache and Browsing history of a specific website

How to Automatically Clear Firefox Cache, Browsing History, Cookies and Active logins on Exit

The above method can be monotonos, especially when you restart the browser frequently and dont want to repeat the process over and over again. Here are the steps to automatically clear firefox cache, browsing history, site logins on exit:

1. Install the History Block Firefox Add-on

2. Go to the add-on settings and select the fields you want to clear automatically when you close the browser. This Active logins, cache, form and search history, browsing history and cookies. You may also like to clear the offline website data as well, this is recommended if you face any problems with a particular site in question.

3. You can also specify a list of hosts or domains in the add-on prefernces to block the history of particular websites. This is useful when you do not want to use an incognito or private browsing mode

Click OK and you are done. Whenever you quit Firefox, all the cache will be automatically cleared. If you are using Google Chrome, check out how to manually clear browser cache and browsing history in Google Chrome.