You can browse games on Steam in your standard desktop browser, or in the Steam desktop client. The Steam desktop client has an inbuilt browser that can show you information about a game. The details are more intelligible in the Steam client so it makes sense that individuals want to use it over a desktop browser. If nothing else, buying a game is less demanding with the client. There’s only one issue; Steam doesn’t automatically clear its web browser cache. This, in the long run, will lead the Steam client into lagging. On the surface of it, there’s no reason for Steam to lag but the browser cache is the hidden reason. To solve the lag, you need to clear the Steam web browser cache.
Steam has an inbuilt option for clearing the web browser cache. You can use it to clear the Steam web browser cache at whatever point it begins to lag, or you can automate it. I will show you how to do both of them.
Table of Contents
Manually Clear The Steam Web Browser cache
Open Steam. On the title bar go to Steam>Settings.
In the Settings window, go to the ‘Web Browser’ tab and click the ‘Delete web browser cache’ button. You can alternatively also clear cookies from the browser but it will have no effect on decreasing/eliminating the lagging.
Automatically Clear The Steam Web Browser Cache
You need to make sure to manually clear the Steam web browser cache. It is even better just automate this so you won’t be bothered by it again. You can automate it with a very simple script. I will show you how you can use a simple script and a scheduled task to enable you to clear the Steam web browser cache automatically each time you launch the Steam client. This will take about ten minutes for you to set up and is quite simple.
Clear Steam Web Browser Cache Script
Open Notepad and paste the following. Give it a reasonable name and save the file with a BAT extension. The script has been written by StackExchange user zaTricky.
@echo off
TITLE CLEAR STEAM WEB CACHE BEFORE LAUNCHING
rmdir/s/q “%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Steam\htmlcache”
mkdir “%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Steam\htmlcache”
Create Scheduled Task
Next, you have to create a scheduled task that does two things; runs the script above, and launches Steam directly after. Open the Task Scheduler and create another task. Give it a name and afterward go to the Actions tab.
You have to add two Actions here. Tap the New button to add the main activity. Try not to change any of the default parameters. Click the Browse button and select the script you made in the previous step. This is the first Action for the task.
Add a second action and once more, do not change anything. Click the ‘Browse” button and select your Steam.exe file, wherever it is on your hard drive. Add this second action and you’re finished. All you require now is a simple approach to run it. The simplest approach to do that is to use a desktop shortcut.
Copy the name of the task you just made and paste it into a text file for speedy reference. Right-click on your desktop and go to New>Shortcut. Type the following in the Location field.
C:\Windows\System32\Schtasks.exe/run/tn “Task name”
Ensure you supplant ‘Task name’ with the name you set for the task you made. That’s it in a nutshell. Whenever you want to open Steam, all you have to do is use this desktop shortcut. It will rapidly clear the Steam web browser cache and open the application.
