The download history is stored as part of the normal history (visited sites/links) and a special annotation identifies it as a download item in the history.
So you can't separate the two anymore.
Note that the classic Download Manager stores its data in a different file, so you need to check both if you've set to remember downloads.

You can set the Boolean pref browser.download.useToolkitUI to true on the about:config page to restore the old Download Manager window and make all download settings appear in "Tools > Options > General".

The browser.download.manager.retention pref doesn't have effect with the new Download Manager and is forced to manual (2).

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/about:config

Thank you for the answer.

I posted a very detailed summary of this problem last year on the Mozilla forums, here, and I am disappointed to see it has not yet been resolved.

In fact, it's been made worse.

With the addition of the new "fancy" skinned download manager UI, the flexibility of Firefox further decreases.

Now, as you say, the "retetion" pref is ignored, and downloads MUST be saved alongside browsing history, which to me is incredibly stupid.

@cor-el: your solution works only partially, because while the downloads are cleared from the "old style" DL manager when it's re-activated, the download history remains under History -> View All History -> Downloads.

As a developer myself: what are the Firefox developers thinking?!?!

Sure your problem is worse, the downloads manager was changed for Firefox 20 and now download history is saved in the same file as browsing history. Previously the downloads history was saved in a separate file.

Use Help > Submit Feedback... to express your displeasure with this issue. This forum is primarily user to user support, the developers rarely, if ever, visit this forum, and the Mozilla employees who do help out here probably take the weekend off.

I posted a very detailed summary of this problem last year on the Mozilla forums, here, and I am disappointed to see it has not yet been resolved.

Have you not noticed you posted this on two different forums and this one has a mozilla.org url?. The mozillaZine site is not a part of nor run by Mozilla

Thank you both for your replies. I wasn't aware that MozillaZine was not affiliated with Mozilla but I do hope my post there can at least enlight some other users.

As for the "Submit Feedback" option - I have done this, but one has to wonder how much of that is actually read, given the enormous volumes of feedback.

In the past I've also used Bugzilla to report issues but again I don't see many being actioned. :(

The failure to disclose all applicable information - http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=12839687#p12839687 - makes whatever you posted here and at MozillaZine absolutely worthless for any other user. Firefox Preloader prevents the "Clear history when Firefox closes" preference from working, because you aren't allowing Firefox to close completely.

@the-edmeister: Firefox Preloader is not related to the issue at all. It merely stops the workaround from working.

The issue is that users can no longer choose to separate their download and browsing history preferences.

The workaround is that you can clear download history every time Firefox closes.

The solution will be to separate the download and browsing history preferences again (as in FF12) so that download history is *not kept at all* and/or downloads are removed *immediately*.

Firefox 12 already had the Downloads folder in the Library. You only got the classic Download Manager when you inspected the downloads. Current Firefox version still have two places to manage the downloads and both are independent, so if you clear the history in the Library then you may still have download history in the classic Download Manager (browser.download.useToolkitUI = true) if you do not let this expire automatically.

I'm beyond livid that this change was implemented in Firefox 12 and up, and that now they seem to be taking steps to keep all but the most sophisticated users from configuring it to not do this and/or require a third-party add-on to accomplish what used to be on an options tab in Firefox. What the hell are the developers thinking? Did the recruit a crew from Microsoft to screw up FIrefox?