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Older browsing history keeps reappearing. How to delete?

  • 5 replies
  • 17 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by John99

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I've got FF 7.01, and it's wonderful. However, when I click the History (clock dial = "Display pages you've viewed recently"), I get browsing history I have not looked at in over six months!

Why would that be appearing? I use Tools/Clear Recent History, but I still cannot get rid of these old, browsed locations.

When I use Tools/Options/Advanced/Offline Storage/Clear Now. That STILL does not get rid of that old browsing history either.

Anything in "About:Config" that will help me? I've filtered on "browsing" and on "history," but I cannot determine an FF fix that will do this.

If Firefox does what we thought it does: A user should be able to go "Clear Recent H_istory," and that should do it - and Firefox 7.01 is the exact reason why I will NOT use IE 8.0.

Can you help me get back the privacy protections that Microsoft will not offer us? I want to get rid of ALL browsing history - not just part of it.


Many thanks, Everyone calls me Bill

-=0=-

I've got FF 7.01, and it's wonderful. However, when I click the History (clock dial = "Display pages you've viewed recently"), I get browsing history I have not looked at in over six months! Why would that be appearing? I use Tools/Clear Recent History, but I still cannot get rid of these old, browsed locations. When I use Tools/Options/Advanced/Offline Storage/Clear Now. That STILL does not get rid of that old browsing history either. Anything in "About:Config" that will help me? I've filtered on "browsing" and on "history," but I cannot determine an FF fix that will do this. If Firefox does what we thought it does: A user should be able to go "Clear Recent H_istory," and that should do it - and Firefox 7.01 is the exact reason why I will NOT use IE 8.0. Can you help me get back the privacy protections that Microsoft will not offer us? I want to get rid of ALL browsing history - not just part of it. Many thanks, Everyone calls me Bill -=0=-

All Replies (5)

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Something is going wrong, you should be able to clear history.

  • Are you setting the time range to everything?

(Not something I wish to trial, I would need to setup a 6 month plus history and then clear it, but even if I tried I probably could not replicate your fault condition) Also if you wish you need never store it in the first place:

The History information is stored in the same database as your bookmarks, so nuking that is going to loose your bookmarks. I suppose one clumsy workaround would be to save your bookmarks by exporting as HTML, then destroy the database and re-import the HTML bookmarks.

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Install this add-on to clean-up your data base.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/places-maintenance/?src=api

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John99 --- Yes, this was apparently a case of a corrupted Places file. Per your link, I closed FF 7.01, moved Places.SQLITE out of my Profile folder, then restarted. The History bar is now completely clear, and any new places history I generate can be deleted with the Tools/ClearRecentHistory click.

Also, Bookmarks came back unaffected/unchanged. Apparently, it rebuilds from that JSON "bookmarksbackup" file, just as your Mozillazine link above said it would.

You've taught me to fish. Thanks.

Bill

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Amkeew --- I got the history to flush out by the file manipulation above, but I decided to try that Add-on anyway. Oddly, the places.SQLITE is the same 10.24MB file it always was, but it no longer spews out old history I haven't revisited in months. I think I'll keep the Places Maintenance in the Add-ons, and the next time places.SQLITE looks as if it's been damaged, I'll try it out again.

Thank you for this tip.

Bill

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Glad it worked.