Clear Cache & Hard Reload

One click. One site. One fresh load.

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A minimal, zero-dependency browser extension for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox that clears the cache for the current site and hard-reloads it — in one click, with no settings to configure and no data leaving your browser.

When you need a bigger hammer, keyboard shortcuts and a right-click menu give you all-sites and deep-clear modes too.

No popups. No options page. No telemetry. No remote calls. ~100 lines of vanilla JS.

Why ClearCache?

The browser already gives you several cache-clearing tools — and each is annoying in its own way:

Built-in option	What it does	Problem
Ctrl+Shift+R (hard reload)	Reloads with bypassCache: true for that navigation	Doesn't unregister Service Workers; subsequent navigations may still be stale
DevTools → Disable cache	Bypasses cache while DevTools is open	You have to keep DevTools open. Doesn't help users testing your dev build.
Settings → Clear browsing data	Wipes everything, with a confirmation dialog	Nukes every site's cache. Multi-step. Loses your auth sessions everywhere.

ClearCache fills the gap: one click, scoped to the current site, with the Service Worker actually unregistered. The "all sites" and deep-clear modes are still there for when you really do want the big hammer — they just aren't the default.

Install

The Chrome Web Store and Edge Add-ons listings are not yet published. For now, install via side-load from a GitHub Release or build from source. Store badges will appear here once submissions are approved.

Side-load from a GitHub Release (recommended)

Each release publishes two zips:

• clearcache-X.Y.Z.zip — Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera, Vivaldi, or any Chromium MV3 browser.
• clearcache-firefox-X.Y.Z.zip — Firefox 112+.

Chromium (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera, Vivaldi)

1. Download clearcache-X.Y.Z.zip from the Releases page.
2. Verify the SHA-256 against the .sha256 file attached to the same release (optional but recommended).
3. Extract the zip somewhere stable (don't delete the folder — the browser reads from it on every launch).
4. Open your browser's extensions page (chrome://extensions, edge://extensions, brave://extensions, etc.).
5. Toggle Developer mode on.
6. Click Load unpacked and select the extracted folder.
7. Pin the icon to your toolbar.

Firefox 112+

1. Download clearcache-firefox-X.Y.Z.zip from the same release.
2. Extract the zip somewhere stable.
3. Open about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox.
4. Click Load Temporary Add-on and select any file inside the extracted folder (e.g. manifest.json).
5. Pin the icon to your toolbar.

Note: Firefox temporary add-ons are removed when the browser restarts. For a permanent install, wait for the signed build on addons.mozilla.org once the listing is approved, or sign the zip yourself via web-ext sign.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/isaiasgv/ClearCache.git

Then load the cloned folder via Load unpacked (steps 4–7 above). There is no build step.

Usage

Click the toolbar icon. The current site's cache is cleared and the tab hard-reloads.

A toast appears in the top-right of the freshly loaded page confirming what got cleared. The toolbar icon also flashes a color-coded badge as a fallback (for chrome:// pages, the PDF viewer, and other surfaces where the extension can't inject the toast).

All five modes

Action	Shortcut	Right-click menu	Toast / badge color
Clear current site & reload (default)	Alt+Shift+R	✓	✓ green
Clear current site + open subdomains & reload	Alt+Shift+S	✓	✓ green
Clear all sites & reload current tab	Alt+Shift+A	✓	★ amber
Deep clear current site (cache + cookies + storage)	Alt+Shift+D	✓	☠ red
Reload all tabs in this window (clears current site)	Alt+Shift+W	✓	✓ green

Subdomain mode details: the extension enumerates every open tab whose hostname shares the same registrable domain as the current tab (e.g. www.example.com, api.example.com, docs.example.com all roll up to example.com), clears cache for that set of origins, and hard-reloads each of those tabs. Only open tabs are considered — sites you haven't opened are untouched. Registrable-domain detection uses a small built-in allow-list for common multi-label public suffixes (.co.uk, .github.io, .vercel.app, etc.) — not a full PSL, but enough for 95% of real-world sites.

Rebind any shortcut at chrome://extensions/shortcuts.

On any link

Right-click any hyperlink on any page → "Open link with fresh cache". ClearCache clears the cache for the link's origin (not the current page's), then opens the link in a new tab. Useful for jumping to a subdomain, an API endpoint, or a staging URL that you suspect is stale without touching the tab you're on.

Screenshots

Screenshots will be added before the first store submission. Capture spec lives in docs/screenshots/README.md.

Toolbar icon	Toast confirmation	Right-click menu

Permissions

Every permission is justified. There are no "just in case" requests.

Permission	Why it's needed
browsingData	Calling chrome.browsingData.remove to clear cache, Cache Storage, Service Workers, and (deep mode only) cookies / localStorage / IndexedDB.
tabs	Reading the active tab's URL to scope the clear to its origin, and reloading it.
contextMenus	Adding the right-click entries on the toolbar icon.
scripting	Injecting the confirmation toast into the freshly reloaded page. Toast injection is the only use of this permission.
<all_urls>	The per-site scoping logic must be able to resolve any origin you visit. The extension never reads page contents.

Privacy

The extension collects nothing, transmits nothing, and contacts no remote servers. No analytics, no error reporting, no usage tracking. The full policy is at docs/privacy.md, and you can verify every claim by reading background.js — it's about 100 lines.

Browser compatibility

Browser	Status
Google Chrome 114+	Supported (recommended)
Microsoft Edge 114+	Supported
Brave, Arc, Opera, Vivaldi	Supported (Chromium-based, latest)
Mozilla Firefox 112+	Supported (download the clearcache-firefox-X.Y.Z.zip artifact from each release)
Safari	Not supported — different extension model

• minimum_chrome_version is 114 on the Chromium build because the per-origin scoping in chrome.browsingData.remove requires it.
• strict_min_version is 112.0 on the Firefox build because that is when MV3 background scripts gained support for "type": "module" (ES module imports in the background event page).

Firefox caveats:

• Firefox's browsingData.remove accepts a hostnames array (no port) rather than Chrome's origins array (full origin). As a consequence, clearing http://localhost:3000 also clears cache for any other port on localhost.
• Firefox's browsingData.remove does not support the cacheStorage or serviceWorkers data types. ClearCache strips those keys when running on Firefox so the call succeeds, but on sites that use a Service Worker for offline caching you may still see cached content after a default clear. Use deep-clear mode (Alt+Shift+D) to also wipe cookies / localStorage / IndexedDB — which unregisters enough Service Worker state to fully bust the cache on most sites.

Both are Firefox API limitations, not ClearCache bugs.

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For developers

Project layout

ClearCache/
├── background.js              # Service worker / event page — the entire runtime (~350 lines)
├── manifest.json              # Chromium MV3 manifest (service_worker)
├── manifest.firefox.json      # Firefox MV3 manifest (scripts + browser_specific_settings)
├── lib/origin.js              # Pure helpers (originOf, hostnameOf)
├── icons/                     # Toolbar icons (16, 32, 48, 128 px)
├── _locales/                  # i18n strings — 20 locales (en, es, de, fr, it, nl, pl, pt_BR, ru, tr, ja, ko, zh_CN, zh_TW, vi, id, th, he, ar, fa)
├── LICENSE                    # GPL-3.0
├── README.md
├── CHANGELOG.md               # Auto-maintained by the release workflow
├── CONTRIBUTING.md
├── SECURITY.md
├── CLAUDE.md                  # Hard rules for AI-assisted contributions
├── docs/
│   ├── privacy.md             # Privacy policy
│   └── screenshots/           # README-embedded screenshots
└── store/                     # Listing assets for Chrome Web Store / Edge Add-ons / AMO / Opera

Branching model

Branch	Purpose	Releases produced
release	Active development. All feature/fix PRs target this branch.	Prereleases (vX.Y.Z-rc.N)
main	Stable. Mirrors what's published to the stores. Updated monthly from release.	Stable releases (vX.Y.Z)

Push to release → automatic prerelease. Merge release → main → automatic stable release. Hotfix → land fix: on release (prerelease runs), then immediately PR release → main for the stable promotion. No direct PRs to main.

Versioning policy

Versioning is fully automated by the Release workflow using Conventional Commits.

Default: every releasable commit produces a patch. This project deliberately stays in 0.x and bumps minor/major only when explicitly stated.

Commit type	Triggers a release?	Default bump
feat: / fix: / perf: / refactor: (with or without !)	yes	patch
docs: / test: / chore: / ci: / build: / style: / revert:	no	—

To request a higher bump, state it explicitly via either:

• A Release-Bump: trailer in any commit body in the release range:

  feat: rework the toast renderer
  
  Release-Bump: minor
  

• A manual workflow run with bump_override = minor or major from the Actions tab.

The highest level signaled across all commits in the range wins.

Release workflow details

On push to release (prerelease):

1. Compute the next semver base from commits since the last stable tag.
2. Count existing vX.Y.Z-rc.* tags for that base, increment to get rc.N.
3. Set the manifest version inside the zip only to X.Y.Z.N (Chrome's 4-digit form — the closest legal encoding of X.Y.Z-rc.N). The repo's manifest.json is not modified.
4. Build clearcache-X.Y.Z-rc.N.zip + SHA-256.
5. Tag vX.Y.Z-rc.N and publish a GitHub Release marked prerelease.
6. CHANGELOG.md is not updated (only stable releases write to it).

On push to main (stable):

1. Same bump computation.
2. Set the manifest version to X.Y.Z, build the zip + SHA-256.
3. Prepend release notes to CHANGELOG.md.
4. Commit manifest.json + CHANGELOG.md together as chore(release): vX.Y.Z [skip ci], push to main.
5. Tag vX.Y.Z and publish a GitHub Release.

Branch protection: once main is protected, allow github-actions[bot] to bypass, or create a fine-grained PAT with contents: write and store it as repo secret RELEASE_TOKEN. The workflow picks it up automatically.

Store submission (manual)

After the GitHub Release for a stable vX.Y.Z appears, download the matching zip and upload it to:

Store	Zip	Fee
Chrome Web Store Developer Dashboard	clearcache-X.Y.Z.zip	$5 one-time registration
Microsoft Edge Add-ons Partner Center	clearcache-X.Y.Z.zip	Free
Opera Add-ons Developer Dashboard	clearcache-X.Y.Z.zip	Free
Firefox Add-ons (AMO)	clearcache-firefox-X.Y.Z.zip	Free

Submission stays manual on purpose — every store requires a human to confirm listing copy and permission justifications. Canonical answers for each store's privacy / justification forms live in store/:

• store/chrome-webstore-answers.md
• store/edge-addons-answers.md
• store/opera-addons-answers.md

Contributing

Contributions welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md first.

Hard rules (also in CLAUDE.md):

• No AI-assistant attribution in commits, trailers, author/committer fields, or PR descriptions.
• No new dependencies, telemetry, or build steps. This extension stays minimal.
• Manifest V3 only.
• Don't manually edit manifest.json's version field — the release workflow owns it.

Reporting bugs → use the bug report template. Reporting security issues → see SECURITY.md (private disclosure via GitHub Security Advisories).

License

GNU General Public License v3.0 — see LICENSE.

ClearCache — a one-click cache-clear and hard-reload browser extension.
Copyright (C) 2026  Isaias Garcia

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

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Made with care, no analytics, and no AI co-authors.
_{Issues and PRs: github.com/isaiasgv/ClearCache}