A few basics to assist in the use of NetscapeHandling Cookies A “cookie” is a small amount of information that a web site copies to your hard disk. A cookie can help a web site identify you the next time you visit. For instance, if you shop for books online, the bookstore’s web site might use a cookie to store information about your favorite subjects, and later use that information to recommend particular books.
- To control your computer’s behavior with respect to cookies:
- From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.
- Click the Advanced category.
- Click one of the radio buttons. Important: In most cases, “Accept all cookies” is the best choice. The second button means that your computer will not send a cookie to a server that did not originate it.
- If you want to be notified when Communicator accepts a cookie, check “Warn me before accepting a cookie.” Changing Cache Settings Your computer stores copies of frequently accessed pages in the memory cache or disk cache. This way, the computer doesn’t have to retrieve the page from the network each time you view it.
- To set the size of the memory cache or to clear it (Windows and Unix only):
- From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.
- Open the Advanced category; then click Cache.
- Enter a number in the Memory Cache field to specify the size of the memory cache. 1024K to 2000K is a good size.
- To clear the Memory Cache immediately, click Clear Memory Cache. Important: A larger memory cache allows more data to be quickly retrieved. But unless you have a lot of extra memory on your computer, 1024K is large enough.
To set the size of the disk cache or to clear it:
- From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.
- Open the Advanced category; then click Cache.
- Enter a number in the Disk Cache field to specify the size of the disk cache. 7680K (5000K on Unix) is a good size.
- (Optional) To specify where the disk cache should be stored, click Choose Folder, find the folder you want, and double-click to select it.
- To clear the Disk Cache immediately, click Clear Disk Cache. Important: A larger disk cache allows more pages to be quickly retrieved, but more of your hard disk space is used. When you quit Communicator, it performs cache maintenance.
If maintenance takes longer than you wish, try reducing the size of the disk cache. To specify how often Navigator checks the network for page revisions (so that you don’t keep “stale” pages in the cache too long)
- From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.
- Click the Advanced category; then click Cache.
- Select Once Per Session, Every Time, or Never. “Every Time” assures that the page you see is always the latest, at the cost of slower performance. “Never” is fastest, but the page you see might be stale.
To refresh a page at any time: Click Reload. The computer checks the network to make sure you have the latest version of the page. To retrieve a fresh copy of a page regardless of what’s in the cache, hold down the Shift key (Option key on Mac OS) and click Reload. If pages that should be in the cache are taking longer to appear than they should, make sure the preference is not set to Every Time, because the verification requires a network connection that takes time. Setting Language Priorities Web pages are sometimes available in several languages. Navigator presents pages in the language you prefer, if it is available. You can specify the languages you wish to see, in order of preference.
- To set language priorities:
- From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.
- Open the Navigator category; then click Languages.
- Click Add.
- Select a language and its code. If you wish to add a code not on the list, type the language and its code in the Others field (see Note, below).
- If you want to reorder the languages in the list, select a language and use the up and down arrows.
Note: Two-letter codes enclosed in brackets appear next to each language in the list. These are standard abbreviations for languages. For a complete list, go to this web site:
http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/related/iso639.txt