How to Clear or flush the DNS cache in Google Chrome?
It all started with the ‘Timeout error’
Recently while accessing to a regular website from my browser, the site didn’t load at all, showing a ‘timeout error’. To my surprise when I use a proxy server the website got loaded. Throughout the issue I was under the impression that there might be some internet issues or the site might be undergoing maintenance.
It was because my DNS cache was full
I web-surfed the issue on internet and some technical information related to my problem covered my screen. The common solution that all were imposing is to empty or flush the DNS cache from my system. Just like many others, I also use Google Chrome for its amazing features. However, I didn’t know that this Chrome browser has an inbuilt option to reset the DNS cache as well.
Also check out How to Remove Shortcuts from Google Homepage
What is meant by DNS?
But, this term DNS and its related functionality was zombie to me at first sight and it happens to every newbie as well who heard the term for the fast time. Later then by researching some further, I found out the answer finally, which I felt like sharing with you all.
As we all know, all the devices in a network have their IP address. For example, ‘google.com’ has its IP address and so does others. The work of the DNS is to map such IP address from the web site which I enter.
So, when I access a domain name for the first time, it generates a request from DNS. The DNS for the google.com as of now is 74.125.68.189. I will get back to you later about how I found it out.
What exactly DNS Cache does?
Once my computer gets the information about the domain of the website, it saves the address in my system for few days. The saving of area in my system depends upon websites. Once my order gets registered with the domain, it won’t ask for the area again till the domain gets expired. All the memory of my domain lookups is stored in the domain cache itself.
Sometimes for certain reason, the cache gets corrupted or becomes out of date. If this happens I cannot be able to access the website. However, flushing the DNS cache will force the system to empty the cache and it will forget all the DNS entries.
Now I will show you the step by step process for clearing up your DNS cache from google chrome:
The first step which I took is that; I entered chrome://net-internals/#dns in the address bar of Chrome browser. Then I pressed the clear host cache button. As shown in the screen shot, it shows the domain address which is registered in DNS cache. That’s how I got the IP address of google.com
After clearing the DNS, this is what the page poped up on my screen.
The next option was to install the DNS Flusher add on in the Chrome browser, and anyone can do the DNS flush with just one click.
That’s it now your DNS cache in Google Chrome is cleared.
