This is happening due to how your web browser and the website work together to try to conserve bandwidth.
You might have heard terms like "temporary internet files" or your browser's "cache" before. When you visit a website (such as this one) the images and other files associated are stored on your computer in this "cache", so when you refresh or move to a different page, it doesn't have to re-download every image, every single time.
After a period of time, the local copies of images/stuff in your cache will expire, and your browser will only then check for new copies from the server. When you upload a new profile pic, it is saved over the top of your current one, with the same name - thus when your browser checks if it already has an image cached by that name, it finds the old one (it can't know it's old, at this stage) and doesn't bother checking for a newer one. Only when this expires will it check, find the new one, and copy that down.
Y'know, basically.
The bottom line is that your new profile picture is visible to anyone that's never seen your profile before, immediately as soon as you upload it. For anyone else it may take a day or so. If you want to speed it along yourself, you can clear your temporary internet files/cache, forcing new copies of all images/files to be cached.
Et voila! :)
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This is happening due to how your web browser and the website work together to try to conserve bandwidth.
You might have heard terms like "temporary internet files" or your browser's "cache" before. When you visit a website (such as this one) the images and other files associated are stored on your computer in this "cache", so when you refresh or move to a different page, it doesn't have to re-download every image, every single time.
After a period of time, the local copies of images/stuff in your cache will expire, and your browser will only then check for new copies from the server. When you upload a new profile pic, it is saved over the top of your current one, with the same name - thus when your browser checks if it already has an image cached by that name, it finds the old one (it can't know it's old, at this stage) and doesn't bother checking for a newer one. Only when this expires will it check, find the new one, and copy that down.
Y'know, basically.
The bottom line is that your new profile picture is visible to anyone that's never seen your profile before, immediately as soon as you upload it. For anyone else it may take a day or so. If you want to speed it along yourself, you can clear your temporary internet files/cache, forcing new copies of all images/files to be cached.
Et voila! :)