What does "refresh" do? (computers)

Uh, in what context? In a general sense, it updates whatever you’re looking at to take into account new information, such as reloading the fluther main page to see if there’s any new questions (some sites also do this by themselves, like Facebook, but those are relatively rare). But for most tasks other then browsing the internet your computer refreshes whenever it notices new information.

There’s also the refresh rate of monitors, which is how quickly the screen refreshes itself. Which is pretty much the same thing, but is the screen updating itself with new information (such as the position of the mouse), and is usually much faster (a standard refresh rate is 60Hz, which means it refreshes 60 times per second).

Pretty much none of this has to do with ‘performance’ per se, though a faster screen refresh rate usually means a better picture and lower eye strain.

In computer apps the refresh option is typically chosen from a View menu. By right-clicking on the Windows desktop, however, you can also bring up a refresh option the causes the desktop (and everything on it) to be “repainted” by the operating system. Icons, windows & other graphical objects, whose appearance might have gotten messed up by other software, are redisplayed with updated content.

When something is slow to load for example, I click refresh and there is the solution.

I believe the OP is asking about the Refresh option that’s in the context menu when you right-click. (You’ll find it near the bottom of the menu.)

I don’t know what it does, and am interested in the answer to this question myself.

BTW, you will find this option in the context menu of other applications as well, not just when you’re in a browser.

Clicking refresh will reload the file system. This is often useful when connected to a server and a new file gets added to a folder from another computer, however your computer doesn’t see that file immediately. Clicking refresh will update your computer with the most recent file/folder additions to that server.

May I ask ancillary questions?

What happens when I “refresh” windows desktop? (Yes, right click -> refresh) Does it make computer faster?

And, in browsers – sometimes, or perhaps many times, pages don’t load on first hit; however, when I refresh it, it loads faster?

It may clear out a little ram for a second but it certainly won’t make your computer faster. Where ever you hit right click>refresh in the operating system, it simply refreshes the file system, that’s it.

Hitting refresh in a web browser is similar. Under the circumstance you’re referring to could be due to the web server becoming unresponsive and sending a new requests to load the page (refresh button) could allow it to respond better.

It’s the OS I was talking about.

Sorry by the way I missed the “right click” part in the detail of the OP.