Clearing Your Complete Web Browsing History in Firefox 3 - Tough
Firefox has a "Clean Private Data" feature that promises to clear all your web surfing tracks - everything including cookies, cache, temporary files, web addresses and stored passwords are deleted from the computer.
However if you are using the latest Firefox 3 browser, do not assume that this "Clean Private Data" command will clean your entire Firefox web history - anyone can easily discover the websites that you have visited using Firefox.
1. Press Ctrl+Shift+Del to open the Clear Private Data window in Firefox, select everything (including Browsing History) and hit OK. If you like, you may restart Firefox.
2. Everything should be cleared from Firefox in Step 1. Now lets click the drop-down in the Firefox address bar - you’ll see a long list of websites there. How come they are not deleted ?
3. There’re some more surprises here - from the bookmarks toolbar, click either the "Smart Bookmarks" or the "Places" folder and you’ll find another list that uncovers your browsing habits.
This is probably a bug that should be fixed in the future builds of Firefox 3 but until then, don’t rely on the browser if you are worried about privacy.
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Amit,
yes it is true firefox 3 shows a list of websites in the address bar when you start typing. But the URL’s shown are from the bookmarks you have, not from your browsing history. These can be identified from the golden yellow star on the right side! Google, Yahoo, Amazon and other sites in the smart search are also listed. Try visiting a site not in your bookmark list, clear the history and try to find it again; I could not!
The same thing with smart bookmarks. It only shows sites you recently visited clicking away from your bookmarks menu (In my testing, smart bookmarks didnt list bookmarks I visited from the bookmark toolbar!) and yes, we do need a way to clear the smart bookmark history.
I reverted back to firefox 2 because some of my ajax scripts are not working well in the beta 3 version. But I like the security features for extensions and the fact that the HOME button (which is technically a bookmark) has been moved to the bookmarks section.
Good finding Amit… I think this is a critical security issue with FF3 ..and Mozilla must have to fix it in next release… Software without bugs is not possible ;) and that’s the reason we call them as beta and then versions..!!
I came across it a week before but have you noticed that only the starred ones remain in location bar?
I’m currently testing the Firefox 3 Beta 4 Portable. Compared to FF 2.12 I have discovered something annoying in FF 3:
You can’t both: In Options have “Show my windows and tabs from last time” (built-in session restore feature) chosen and also have chosen “Always clear my private data when I close Firefox” with the “Browsing History” checked in settings.
If you have that, it won’t remember your tabs from last time. Then it will just open with a blank tab.
In FF 2 you could do this….
Annoying that I now have to disable that “Always clear my private data when I close Firefox” feature and manually do it before closing (CTRL+SHIFT+DEL). Anyone who have a fix for this without installing an extension?
(You know: “Be able to clear your browsing history when closing FF 3, and have your tabs from last session restored when opening FF 3″)
Actually, the only way to do it is to click into the address bar, and press down arrow to select the particular link. Then delete each individual link.
Just discovered this myself and its really, really bad karma. I dont want everything recorded that why I turn off everything from password, to cookies, to form filling to history. everything.
Hope Mozilla is not going the way of microsoft and adding too much functionaility that it becomes intrusive.
Yeah you can press delete but like I already asked it not to remember stuff so if this stays in the launch I am moving on from mozilla.
What about the advanced settings available through typing about:config in the address bar? Can changing one or more of those provide a work around in the meantime without causing more grief than relief?
Did they manage to fix that ?
RC1 is out ! and I still have that problem of clearing history with Firefox on OSX
This was not fixed and I believe that since it is directly linked to the history that the people of Firefox believes this is a boon to their customers. Since you tend to bookmark sites you want to revisit they believe that in case you have already bookmarked it, browsing to it is easier with the helping hand of your bookmarks.
Although I personally disagree with this, as I am fastidious with my bookmarks and if I wanted to use them I would. However I can probably see myself and other security nuts being in the minority. Unfortunate. I hope someone finds an acceptable alternative (I.E. Plug in or another way other than to stop using bookmarks and just place them in kwrite or something).
This isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. I guess it is displaying all web pages in your bookmarks folder. Basically 3.0 will put unvisited bookmarks into your history bar. So if you have 30000 bookmarks, when you upgrade to 3.0 it assumed they were all unvisited and will appear in your history bar.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7429
ghetto work around above.
This is so annoying not being able to delete history from the address bar. If they don’t fix this, I may revert to IE.
I get that that drop down box is only showing recent sites you visited that you have bookmarked, but it still shouldn’t be there. If I told it to erase my browsing history that should include ALL history….I don’t need something telling me what bookmarks I visited….they’re my bookmarks….I know I visited them.
If this “clear Private History” bug in Firefox-3 cannot be fixed, I will then go back to use Firefox-2. That bug is extremely annoying.
If funtionality is added, one should have the option of inactivating it.
Here is how to turn off this annoying feature:
1) Type “about:config” (without the quotation marks) into the location bar
2) Click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button
3) Filter “browser.urlbar.maxRichResults”
4) Double click the row and reset the value to “0″
#14 hippos:
I am a total neophite, but I could follow the directions all the way to and including 3) “Filter “browser.urlbar.maxRichResults”.
I could not find where to “Double click the row and reset the value to “0″”. What “row” do we double click?
In any event, thanks much for letting us know there is a way to get rid of this privacy problem with FF 3.O.
4) Double click the row and reset the value to “0″
I did it, but still ONE url is displayed.
gg FF3.
After step #3, you should see only one item with the Preference Name “browser.urlbar.maxRichResults” listed. Just double click on this item and the browser will ask you to enter an integer value. Enter “0″(default is “12″).
You still have one url after changing the value to “0″. You have to close and then restart the ff3 to get rid of all the url.
ErikU’s link is to an addon that clears the supposed Awesome Bar. The addon is just what you’re all looking for.
THANKS, HIPPOS -
It worked, but as a certified computer moron I had a couple of problems along the way that may be of interest to other morons:
1. When I first tried to type “about:config” I did not notice there was a colon (:) after the word “about”, so I didn’t type it correctly.
2. As a result, I never saw the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button. Unable to find that button, I decided it was just some kind of computer guy humor that just meant, “be careful!” Therefore, it turns out I wasn’t even on the right page to be able to follow the next instruction to “Double click the row and reset the value to “0″”.
After repeating my mistake several times and squinting at the screen I finally said to myself, “Is that a colon after the “t”? Turned out it was.
Did I say I was a neophite? Anyway, all’s well that ends well, and now the so-called “awesome bar” only shows the one bookmark that is in the URL window. Thanks very much. … Mike
This really seems to be a bug and is still not fixed, mozilla tried to make a world record without making to software fully useful. And firefox 3 is also seems to be memory hungry, i switched back to version 2.14.
Use about:config to set browser.urlbar.maxRichResults to 0 (zero) and nothing is saved.
Doug,
i set browser.urlbar.maxRichResults to 0, and no results showed. when i set it back to 12, the old results re-showed. seemed they simply are being masked, rather than flushed when setting to 0.
good tip, though, just not as thorough as i’d hoped.
m
I really am not happy with this roll out. There is no privacy and my wife caught me looking at Gisele Bundchen topless and bottomless in GQ. She called me a pig. Privacy is sacred and FF really left us in a lurch. Perhaps it was one of those right wing nut jobs from the justice department working for Google who things we should all be monks? I am going back to IE.
** my wife caught me looking at Gisele Bundchen topless and bottomless in GQ **
All husbands look at Gisele Bundchen topless and bottomless in GQ
The problem is designers of FF3 saw fit to ram this “smart” browsing “feature” down our throats.
There is no easy way to disable it, to keep it from logging tracking data, and to delete it.
Then the trick of making FF2.x hard to find (there is a link on their site now, but you got to look for it), and finally, to discontinue support for FF2.x as of December, 2008 to force a migration.
Well, they are going to force a migration alright — to anything else but FF3 and IE, perhaps to Safari, or Opera, but not their crap.
I might point out that even Microsoft supports IE6 well after IE7 is out, but Mozilla is killing off support for FF2 in 6 months.
Enough is enough.
Time for a new competing Browser.
I don’t so much mind it showing bookmarks when I start typing in the address bar. It’s the fact it keeps all the browser history that I don’t like.
I use ccleaner one a week to get rid of all the crap. Now, because of the smartbar it doesn’t get rid of my browser history. While there is work arounds to stop it showing your bookmarks and make it look like the ff2, it still logs tracking data.
The main reason I switched to ff years ago was I liked having control of what it logged and didn’t log, since this is a shared pc, privacy is very important to me.
I tried it for a month or so (beta versions and final release) but I’m back using ff2 now. And with support for that stopping in 6 months, unless there’s a new release in that time that allows you to disable the new location bar, I’ll be moving to another browser.
Do you realize that the history info that Firefox 3 is now showing has been kept by Firefox all along, in all its versions? Since installing Firefox 3 a few days ago, I’ve been seeing links to sites I visited years ago, and not just bookmarks! I guess when we “cleared” the private data, it just hid it from the history interface, but didn’t actually erase it.
For example, in spite of clearing all the data, and running CCleaner repeatedly, the file “D:\Documents and Settings\(MyName)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\places.sqlite” remains nearly 2 MB in size and contains the addresses of web pages I visited, as I say, years ago.
I’m afraid Firefox has never been good at privacy, and this new ‘feature’ just highlights the fact.
I don’t even have the file “D:\Documents and Settings\(MyName)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\places.sqlite” on my pc. I scanned all folders including hidden and protected folders.
I looked at D:\Documents and Settings\(MyName)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\places.sqlite
but when I got to places.sqlite I could not see what is in there. What program do I need to look at this? It asks to pick a program or to go online to pick one I am not sure what to do there.
Just to let everyone know, the new version of Ccleaner clears both browser history, cookies and cache in FF3.
(1) Thanks Hyppos it’s working for the location bar history (2) Beware: for the Bookmarks, Recently Bookmarked I deleted them individually. Result all my Recently Bookmarks are gone including my actual Bookmarks!
As far as I can see, your browse history is deleted completely if you remove places.sqlite from your profile.
I checked into places.sqlite and it is the new Bookmark folder for FF3.
The reason you may have gotten very old bookmarks into it is because I suspect FF3 by default, loads your backup bookmarks (in the bookmark backup folder) where you have a stack of old ones including ones you deleted long ago.
If you deleted those backups, I do not think FF2 kept records of the deleted bookmarks elsewhere or kept additional usage data like FF3 does.
is it just me or everyone has this issue, any changes I made in options and click ok, close ff3, reopen ff3, go back to options, everything is back to default setting…
Ly
Have a look in this folder:
C:\Documents and Settings\\(MyName)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ew0vjor7.default
You’ll find “places.sqlite” here
I have a rather drastic fix, in the profile folder, there is a file called, places.sqlite, simply delete it and make a new file called, places.sqlite , then make this file read only. This stop firefox from storing ANY bookmarks, or history, however if have regually viewed pages, a extension called Fast Dail , can disply pages u want it to in new tabs