How can I clean out my browser cache?

How does Facebook deal with client Browser cache?

• Nowadays modern browsers do cache javascript, css, images... I imagine that, when Facebook codebase gets updated, browsers have to download the new code/images, etc. The only bulletproof technique I know is changing filenames constantly to bypass browser's cache. Can anybody drop a word about it? If you don't know how facebook is handling it, I'd be pleased to hear your own solutions.

• Answer:

  The way you mention (changing the name) is exactly how Rails does it. The asset pipeline will "compile" your assets which means it will concatenate and minifiy your js, for instance, and then create a file called application-<hash based on the contents>.js. Then there are helper methods in ruby that let you specify load application.js here and it will load the correct file with the correct hash. Then when you change the content the compiled file name changes automatically for you. The same thing happens with css, images, fonts, etc. I'm sue Facebook is doing something simple but in PHP.