I'm betting that the browser you're talking about is Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which caches Web pages as individual files. Unlike Netscape's Navigator, which caches all files efficiently inside a single container file (fat.db), Internet Explorer's cache sucks up disk space thanks to file system overhead. If your drive partition is between 512Mb and 1024Mb and uses the FAT file system, every file in the cache requires at least 16K of storage, even if it contains only a few hundred characters. Multiply this waste by the thousands of files in your cache, and you're squandering megabytes.

MSIE Cache Explorer sorts Internet Explorer's cache so you can delete pages you will never access again

I don't know of a tool that offers the kind of automatic control you're looking for, although as soon as the cache reaches a specified size, Internet Explorer does delete the least recently accessed files before adding new ones to the cache. If you want to browse the cache yourself in search of dead wood, open IE and choose View--Options, click the Advanced tab, and click View Files. Click the Last Accessed column header to sort the cache contents in ascending date order, then select and delete files you don't anticipate viewing again.
If this kind of cache hygiene turns into a regular habit, I recommend using Matthias Wolf's shareware program, MSIE Cache Explorer. This $US20 program lets you organise cache contents by domain (so you can delete, say, all the files from www.wasteoftime.com) or by almost any other criteria. You can download it from Wolf's site at http://www.mwso.com/eng/msice1.htm .
- Scott Spanbauer
[