The Corrupted Cache Vector
As you browse the web, Google Chrome silently downloads thousands of tiny image fragments, CSS stylesheets, and tracking cookies, storing them locally on your hard drive. This cache is designed to drastically accelerate the loading speed of your favourite websites. However, if a website undergoes a major design update, or if a specific script becomes corrupted during download, Chrome will stubborn load the broken, locally cached version rather than the live, functional website. The result is a completely shattered user interface or a page that refuses to load entirely.
How to Clear Your Browser Cache
To force Chrome to fetch a pristine, uncorrupted version of every website from the internet, you must manually obliterate this local cache.
1. Open Google Chrome.
2. To bypass the menus entirely, use the master keyboard shortcut: press Ctrl + Shift + Delete on Windows (or Command + Shift + Delete on a Mac).
3. This will instantly launch the Clear browsing data dialogue box.
4. Look at the top of the box and click the Basic tab.
5. Click the dropdown menu next to “Time range” and select All time.
6. Ensure the box next to Cached images and files is ticked.
7. If you are experiencing severe login issues on a specific site, you should also tick Cookies and other site data. (Warning: This will log you out of every website you are currently signed into).
8. Click the blue Clear data button.
The next time you visit the broken website, the initial load time will be slightly longer as Chrome is forced to download all the assets fresh, but the graphical glitches and loading errors will be completely resolved.