[SOLVED] How to Complete Clear Firefox URL History?

Submitted by Toasty_S on Sat, 05/31/2014 - 08:27
Forums: 
Support
Forum tags: 
firefox
Ubuntu
Linux
url
autocomplete

In general, I love the program. But so far I haven't found how to completely remove a URL from within Firefox's memory. I have all options checked within BB for Firefox. However, after having run BB, if I type a URL -- for a site I've directly typed in the past -- into the address bar, Firefox remembers the hostname. It doesn't remember all the pages I've been to, but it does remember the domain. This seems a little insecure. How can I totally clear the History with BB?

OS: Ubuntu 14.04
Browser: Firefox 29.0
BlearchBit: 1.0

1. Type in wunderground.com into URL
2. Browse website
3. Exit Firefox
4. Run BB (GUI) with all options for Firefox checked
5. Click Delete
6. Close BB
7. Optional: Restart computer
8. Launch Firefox
9. Begin typing "wunderground.com"

Expected: URL will not autocomplete; 100% of site hostname must be typed
Actual: Firefox autocompletes "wunderground.com"

What am I missing?

Toasty_S

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 10:02

With a little help, I was able to figure it out. There is no built-in mechanism for clearing this setting. However you can jerririg it by using the "Custom" field in BleachBit's Preferences.

1. Exit Firefox
2. Start BleachBit
3. Click Edit / Preferences / Custom
4. Click Add file and enter ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxx.default/places.sqlite
5. Close the Preferences box
6. In the left column of BleachBit's window, place a check next to System / Custom

Tada!

**I'm not sure if wiping out **places.sqlite** does anything else, but removing it did solve my initial question.

andrew

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 21:50

Did it erase your bookmarks too? Some people don't care.

This looks like a bug caused by a change in a recent version of Firefox, so I filed it as bug 1326626 in Launchpad

---
Andrew, lead developer

Toasty_S

Thu, 06/05/2014 - 08:25

Did it erase your bookmarks too? Some people don't care.

This looks like a bug caused by a change in a recent version of Firefox, so I filed it as bug 1326626 in Launchpad

Awesome, thanks!

Bookmarks remain intact :)
I haven't noticed it impacting anything else; of course that's just based off what I can see, I'm not looking at the code or structure of the places.sqlite file.

andrew

Fri, 08/01/2014 - 14:08

In Git today I committed two fixes to surgically remove these files. Apparently this even addresses the open (not yet fixed) Firefox bug 932036.

When BleachBit 1.3 beta comes out, please test without deleting the places.sqlite file. Thanks

---
Andrew, lead developer

andrew

Tue, 08/12/2014 - 21:22

Please test the fix (without deleting places.sqlite) in BleachBit 1.3 beta

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Andrew, lead developer