can typical browser based web solutions utilise caching?

[Deatht0ll]

Given a typical web application that may be implemented in a "server side" language, such as the ASP.NET collection or PHP, with a browser providing the end-user interaction is it possible to make use of a persistent local cache?For instance, take a simple centralised database storing thousands of staff records. It would be more efficient for the browser to have a local copy of the appropriate data as long as this cache doesn't become stale. How would this be accomplished? As far as I'm aware cookies are the extend of exposed browser memory and strict domain policy stops any interaction with the hard drive.I'm thinking from a PHP or ASPX web form application (hypertext application?) perspective which I understand as stateless so I'm having difficulty understanding how this would be achieved. Would other .NET solutions offer any advantage, like .NET MVC or WCF?I should make a note that this is not considering the applet technologies Java, Flash, Silverlight et al.