Bill D -

Once again, you try to incite a bunch of intellectual ponderings on subtle differences.

I should probably wait until I've had at least half of my first cuppa' but perhaps deeply seated basic instincts will actually be helpful before I wake up and my mind interferes(?).

I quite frankly have never thought too much about what differences there may actually be, since too many of my sources don't observe the differences and meaning usually can be inferred from context.

IE does have a setting (Tools | Internet Options, General Tab, at Browsing History, the Settings button, where there are several presets to choose from. A "recommended" setting is "Check for new versions - every time I visit a web page. You can also set the temp memory location and size here, and specify how long temp pages should be kept in the Temporary Internet folder.

The IE "refresh" button, which should be in the top toolbar and looks like a green "yin/yang" arrow pair, will normally just reload to your monitor screen from the page stored in the Temporary Internet folder, but may check to see if the server page has been changed, depending on your settings at the location above. A "check for new" isn't really guaranteed, regardless of what preferences you've set though.

Quite often, with the IE yin/yang button, you may get a message saying the page must be reloaded in order to refresh - in which case if you agree a new download of the page will be attempted. This "error" seems to happen almost always when the page contains "Flash" content, and at some level of page jScript content.

The MUDCAT Refresh button, where you can set a filter word or phrase and how many days to search, should always reconstruct a new page and download new to your browser - so far as I can tell. The blank filter box and 1 day default should always get you up to date, if there's a question about what your own localmachine is doing to you.

I'll have to pay a little closer attention to which/whether "advice sources" observe any uniform distinction about when they mean refresh/restore/reload. I think there's probably some consistency with some sources; but there's also lots of "loose usage" where the differences might be significant.

John