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#1
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H i delete all history of specified domain name -- FACEBOOK?
FIREFOX (Quantum, up to date)
I want to delete all history of the specified domain name Facebook.com Can this be done safely while leaving the rest of the history intact? what are the ramifications (if any) of firefox option "forget about this site" for future history? FACE |
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#2
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H i delete all history of specified domain name -- FACEBOOK?
FACE wrote:
FIREFOX (Quantum, up to date) I want to delete all history of the specified domain name Facebook.com Can this be done safely while leaving the rest of the history intact? what are the ramifications (if any) of firefox option "forget about this site" for future history? FACE The description by a poster here, says it works by domain and "history depth". The poster is reporting how Firefox works, to the Opera forum, to see if Opera would consider adding this feature too. https://forums.opera.com/topic/25405...with-one-click History presumably doesn't last forever, so other stuff will be forgotten as the History ages out. The information is stored in SQLite3 databases. There is more than one database, and the databases are linked together. You can't really edit a single database with the available sqlite3.exe program, without leaving tracks in one of the other databases (broken database relations or breadcrumbs). There used to be a schema diagram, showing how the databases related to one another, but I haven't been able to find that recently. And there was at least one add-on, which was an in-browser database editor. ******* To test, back up the Firefox folders (there are multiple of them), then try your test. Shut down Firefox, wait for it to exit, then restore the folders if you didn't like the results. And one sqlite file can have more than one function. Maybe your History, plus your Downloads history, are in the Places database. If you delete the sqlite file, you might lose both information you wanted to delete, and information you didn't want to delete. Also, sqlite has a "dump" command. You can convert an sqlite file, into a "command file" which regenerates the database. It shows lines of text. The URLs of the history items will be displayed when you dump one of the files. sqlite3.exe urlclassifier3.sqlite .dump url.txt That's how you figure out if there is something incriminating in there. The command *doesn't* remove it, but the command style can be used to examine the files later, to see how good of a job any "forget" feature is doing. The Firefox install probably has an sqlite3.exe. You can also get ones here. This is where I got mine that I use for maintenance. ******* https://sqlite.org/download.html Precompiled Binaries for Windows sqlite-dll-win32-x86-3250300.zip (465.31 KiB) 32-bit DLL (x86) for SQLite version 3.25.3. sqlite-dll-win64-x64-3250300.zip (776.39 KiB) 64-bit DLL (x64) for SQLite version 3.25.3. sqlite-tools-win32-x86-3250300.zip (1.68 MiB) A bundle of command-line tools for managing SQLite database files, including the command-line shell program, the sqldiff.exe program, and the sqlite3_analyzer.exe program. ******* It's important to match the version. Firefox has always used a 3-stream of sqlite, and the above sample downloads are still 3-stream. They should work. All I've ever done, is "DUMP" and "VACUUM". VACUUM has the downside, that it could damage the integrity of the database. The browser vacuums every once in a while, so you shouldn't have to. I'm not good with databases, so I can't craft a query to surgically delete Facebook. But I bet there is a succinct sqlite query inside Firefox (somewhere), that is removing the desired entries. Paul |
#3
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H i delete all history of specified domain name -- FACEBOOK?
"FACE" wrote
| I want to delete all history of the specified domain name Facebook.com | You can do a search in History and manually delete all itms with the following, but I'm guessing it won't delete cookies, "super cookies", etc. fbcdn.net facebook.net facebook.com fb.com fbsbx.com fbcdn.com m.me messenger.com instagram.com tfbnw.net whatsapp.com fb.me |
#4
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H i delete all history of specified domain name -- FACEBOOK?
On Wed, 28 Nov 2018 07:44:49 -0500, in alt.windows7.general, Paul
, wrote FACE wrote: FIREFOX (Quantum, up to date) I want to delete all history of the specified domain name Facebook.com Can this be done safely while leaving the rest of the history intact? what are the ramifications (if any) of firefox option "forget about this site" for future history? FACE The description by a poster here, says it works by domain and "history depth". The poster is reporting how Firefox works, to the Opera forum, to see if Opera would consider adding this feature too. https://forums.opera.com/topic/25405...with-one-click History presumably doesn't last forever, so other stuff will be forgotten as the History ages out. The information is stored in SQLite3 databases. There is more than one database, and the databases are linked together. You can't really edit a single database with the available sqlite3.exe program, without leaving tracks in one of the other databases (broken database relations or breadcrumbs). There used to be a schema diagram, showing how the databases related to one another, but I haven't been able to find that recently. And there was at least one add-on, which was an in-browser database editor. ******* To test, back up the Firefox folders (there are multiple of them), then try your test. Shut down Firefox, wait for it to exit, then restore the folders if you didn't like the results. And one sqlite file can have more than one function. Maybe your History, plus your Downloads history, are in the Places database. If you delete the sqlite file, you might lose both information you wanted to delete, and information you didn't want to delete. Also, sqlite has a "dump" command. You can convert an sqlite file, into a "command file" which regenerates the database. It shows lines of text. The URLs of the history items will be displayed when you dump one of the files. sqlite3.exe urlclassifier3.sqlite .dump url.txt That's how you figure out if there is something incriminating in there. The command *doesn't* remove it, but the command style can be used to examine the files later, to see how good of a job any "forget" feature is doing. The Firefox install probably has an sqlite3.exe. You can also get ones here. This is where I got mine that I use for maintenance. ******* https://sqlite.org/download.html Precompiled Binaries for Windows sqlite-dll-win32-x86-3250300.zip (465.31 KiB) 32-bit DLL (x86) for SQLite version 3.25.3. sqlite-dll-win64-x64-3250300.zip (776.39 KiB) 64-bit DLL (x64) for SQLite version 3.25.3. sqlite-tools-win32-x86-3250300.zip (1.68 MiB) A bundle of command-line tools for managing SQLite database files, including the command-line shell program, the sqldiff.exe program, and the sqlite3_analyzer.exe program. ******* It's important to match the version. Firefox has always used a 3-stream of sqlite, and the above sample downloads are still 3-stream. They should work. All I've ever done, is "DUMP" and "VACUUM". VACUUM has the downside, that it could damage the integrity of the database. The browser vacuums every once in a while, so you shouldn't have to. I'm not good with databases, so I can't craft a query to surgically delete Facebook. But I bet there is a succinct sqlite query inside Firefox (somewhere), that is removing the desired entries. Paul Thanks, Paul, you have given a lot of information and answer one of the corollary questions i had which was "which sqlite db is it stored in?", by saying that it was stored in several linked dbs. Also, your use of the word "incriminating" shows that like i had thought, people would think that i wanted to delete "that kind" of history. No. LOL! this is the reason: My starting and stopping of firefox has slowed and that can be due to about a 1000 reasons, but one i thought of this morning was that the history files have probably passed huge and are now gargantuan because of all the various facebook groups i click to each day. My goal is to reduce the size of those history dbs which have been aggregating since, according to "show history older than six months", 2010. (FF was reinstalled on win 7 with FEBE which got all of the old XP History.) ----- what i have noticed this morning is that i don't seem to be able to delete history for pages that are now "404"s. (I deleted, manually, all of 2010 but had some left over that appeared to delete but reappeared on a refresh -- and they are 404s.) FACE |
#5
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H i delete all history of specified domain name -- FACEBOOK?
On Wed, 28 Nov 2018 07:51:18 -0500, in alt.windows7.general, "Mayayana"
, wrote "FACE" wrote | I want to delete all history of the specified domain name Facebook.com | You can do a search in History and manually delete all itms with the following, but I'm guessing it won't delete cookies, "super cookies", etc. fbcdn.net facebook.net facebook.com fb.com fbsbx.com fbcdn.com m.me messenger.com instagram.com tfbnw.net whatsapp.com fb.me Thanks, that is a good list to use. -- FACE |
#6
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H i delete all history of specified domain name -- FACEBOOK?
On Wed, 28 Nov 2018 07:44:49 -0500, in alt.windows7.general, Paul
, wrote FACE wrote: FIREFOX (Quantum, up to date) I want to delete all history of the specified domain name Facebook.com content deleted for brevity By the way, when i deleted all of FACEBOOK.COM of 2010 (except for the ones previously noted) i did it with one click for delete by search and then highlight all in that year. It was the kind of operation that when i entered it, I then went to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee and it was completed when i returned in a few minutes. FACE |
#7
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H i delete all history of specified domain name -- FACEBOOK?
Mayayana wrote:
"FACE" wrote | I want to delete all history of the specified domain name Facebook.com | You can do a search in History and manually delete all itms with the following, but I'm guessing it won't delete cookies, "super cookies", etc. fbcdn.net facebook.net facebook.com fb.com fbsbx.com fbcdn.com m.me messenger.com instagram.com tfbnw.net whatsapp.com fb.me With your file search, look for: +++ DOM storage # Flash (don't delete all of them) webappsstore.sqlite I regularly delete this. Can grow to 5-10MB over time. Seamonkey (similar to Firefox), has a "startupCache.4.little" file, which is supposed to be a cache of plugin stuff. If you detect that growing, you can delete it, and it regenerates. I don't know if modern Firefox has one of those. I test to the level of no longer seeing adverts for Site A on Site B, later. (If I search for SSDs on Newegg, I don't want to see adverts for SSDs when I visit some other unrelated site.) If I see adverts for ladies dresses, it means there's no history of me, cookie-wise. And yes, they still use the cookie database. All of your above-listed domains would likely be sitting in the regular cookie file. DOM storage isn't purely high-level sites, but it is mostly so. +++facebook.com maybe or similar. Not every tracking domain (doubleclick) needs DOM storage. Now, if we were talking chrome or chrome-alike, I'm lost there. There are too many tiny databases in there, to make any progress. I have on occasion, deleted something that held a bunch of icons, and then my environment looks pretty drab. That's the "fail whale" of browser editing, if you lose the icons. Sloppy workmanship :-) But the sqlite files, are another matter entirely. Loads of fun. ".Dump" command for the win! Your "history" is in there somewhere. Paul |
#8
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H i delete all history of specified domain name -- FACEBOOK?
"FACE" wrote
| | Thanks, Paul, you have given a lot of information and answer one of the corollary | questions i had which was "which sqlite db is it stored in?", by saying that it was | stored in several linked dbs. | "The file "places.sqlite" stores the annotations, bookmarks, favorite icons, input history, keywords, and browsing history (a record of visited pages)." http://kb.mozillazine.org/Places.sqlite There are several sqlite files. As far as I know the history is only in places.sqlite. I back that up and seem to have no trouble replacing my history with it. | My goal is to reduce the size of those history dbs which have been aggregating | since, according to "show history older than six months", 2010. (FF was reinstalled | on win 7 with FEBE which got all of the old XP History.) | Did you know you can also limit that? I limit mine to 20 MB. It's the cache size setting in the main settings. I'm not sure how that works. I have places.sqlite limited to 20 MB, yet I have a long history stored. But the file never goes over 20 MB. I suspect that may be due to a couple of things: * Very few pages cache these days because they're generated from the server. The old approach of checking whether a page is already in cache is pretty much irrelevant. * I have offline cache disabled. The default is to allow storing up to 500 MB of offline resources for pages that are interactive to "act intelligently" when you disconnect. of actual pages and images. Either way, if I look at places.sqlite in a hex editor I don't see webpage content or anything that looks like image bytes. Other settings in about:config: Browser.history_expire_sites Set max number of history entries. Default is 40K. Browser.history_expire_days The docs say the default here is 9. Neither of those settings seems to exist by default. And 40K entries doesn't fit with a 9 day limit. But it might be worth some experimenting. (Back up places.sqlite first.) browser.cache.disk.enable browser.cache.disk.capacity Related to storage limits for page cache. Default seems to be 50 MB. But you don't need cache for history. And as noted above, caching no longer serves a purpose in most cases. |
#9
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H i delete all history of specified domain name -- FACEBOOK?
"Paul" wrote
| With your file search, look for: | | +++ DOM storage | # Flash (don't delete all of them) | webappsstore.sqlite I regularly delete this. Can grow to | 5-10MB over time. | I think we browse differently. I don't allow any of that stuff. And Flash?! I've never, ever even had it installed. |
#10
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H i delete all history of specified domain name -- FACEBOOK?
FACE wrote:
On Wed, 28 Nov 2018 07:44:49 -0500, in alt.windows7.general, Paul , wrote FACE wrote: FIREFOX (Quantum, up to date) I want to delete all history of the specified domain name Facebook.com content deleted for brevity By the way, when i deleted all of FACEBOOK.COM of 2010 (except for the ones previously noted) i did it with one click for delete by search and then highlight all in that year. It was the kind of operation that when i entered it, I then went to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee and it was completed when i returned in a few minutes. FACE In my experience, the "dimensions" of Firefox are not infinite. For example, the Bookmarks file stopped working on my Firefox, so I've hit the limit there. I keep my new bookmarks now in Seamonkey. The files in Firefox, should not grow forever. You *can* make your browser slow, by setting the cache of downloaded website files, to a too-large size. Some browsers, you could set them to keep those files in RAM, which made a significant difference. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1169376 http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.ca...rent_directory http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.cache.disk.enable http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.cache.memory.enable You could spend all day farting around with that :-) Entering "about:cache" as a URL, is supposed to give an overview of the resources currently being used. And "about:config" gives access to the hidden preferences. Note that, about:config has no "undo" !!! If you make a mistake, well, you're in deep dodo. In particular, I deleted a line in about:config once, only to discover there was no way to get it back. I had to look up what the format should be, and manually reenter it. Be careful. Paul |
#11
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H i delete all history of specified domain name -- FACEBOOK?
Mayayana wrote:
"Paul" wrote | With your file search, look for: | | +++ DOM storage | # Flash (don't delete all of them) | webappsstore.sqlite I regularly delete this. Can grow to | 5-10MB over time. | I think we browse differently. I don't allow any of that stuff. And Flash?! I've never, ever even had it installed. I have Flash on this side of the room, so I can watch TV recorded by WinTV on the other side of the room. The streamer uses Flash (unfortunately). Paul |
#12
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H i delete all history of specified domain name -- FACEBOOK?
On Wed, 28 Nov 2018 09:03:17 -0500, in alt.windows7.general, "Mayayana"
, wrote "FACE" wrote | | Thanks, Paul, you have given a lot of information and answer one of the corollary | questions i had which was "which sqlite db is it stored in?", by saying that it was | stored in several linked dbs. | "The file "places.sqlite" stores the annotations, bookmarks, favorite icons, input history, keywords, and browsing history (a record of visited pages)." http://kb.mozillazine.org/Places.sqlite There are several sqlite files. As far as I know the history is only in places.sqlite. I back that up and seem to have no trouble replacing my history with it. | My goal is to reduce the size of those history dbs which have been aggregating | since, according to "show history older than six months", 2010. (FF was reinstalled | on win 7 with FEBE which got all of the old XP History.) | Did you know you can also limit that? I limit mine to 20 MB. It's the cache size setting in the main settings. I'm not sure how that works. I have places.sqlite limited to 20 MB, yet I have a long history stored. But the file never goes over 20 MB. I suspect that may be due to a couple of things: * Very few pages cache these days because they're generated from the server. The old approach of checking whether a page is already in cache is pretty much irrelevant. * I have offline cache disabled. The default is to allow storing up to 500 MB of offline resources for pages that are interactive to "act intelligently" when you disconnect. of actual pages and images. Either way, if I look at places.sqlite in a hex editor I don't see webpage content or anything that looks like image bytes. Other settings in about:config: Browser.history_expire_sites Set max number of history entries. Default is 40K. Browser.history_expire_days The docs say the default here is 9. Neither of those settings seems to exist by default. And 40K entries doesn't fit with a 9 day limit. But it might be worth some experimenting. (Back up places.sqlite first.) browser.cache.disk.enable browser.cache.disk.capacity Related to storage limits for page cache. Default seems to be 50 MB. But you don't need cache for history. And as noted above, caching no longer serves a purpose in most cases. Great Info. Especially on the about:config entries (aka as prefs.js) I wished for years that they would clean prefs.js of all of the inactive entries that were aggregating over time. I have been editing those Firefox files since the headers at the top said -this is a Netscape file, do not edit. Not too much in the last few years, though..... |
#13
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H i delete all history of specified domain name -- FACEBOOK?
"FACE" wrote
| Great Info. Especially on the about:config entries (aka as prefs.js) | I wished for years that they would clean prefs.js of all of the inactive entries | that were aggregating over time. | I compiled a help file for that awhile back. https://www.jsware.net/jsware/browse...hp5#mozprefchm But some of these settings are not in it. As you say, they keep changing and some become defunct. I was about to mention this one that I noticed in my about:config... places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pa ges ....but then I found that it does nothing! https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/...ces_Expiration I think the problem is twofold. One problem is that they're just disorganized and seem to do a lot of things by committee. The other problem is that, like Microsoft, they use abstrusness and obfuscation as a security measure. If it's hard to figure out then only the geeks will ever know. Netscape originally cooked up the prefs monstrosity as way to provide corporate IT with control. You're not supposed to be able to understand it. Microsoft pretty much stops anyone from adjusting IE settings simply by putting them behind an intimidating "Advanced" button. Then the settings themselves are not documented. And if you're so determined as to go to the Registry you'll find a quagmire of overlapping settings. The end result is that corporate employees, even if they manage to find the settings, can be transparently overruled by IT staff. And again, only corporate IT geeks who've taken classes know how to adjust the settings and what they mean. I think the best example of Mozilla madness and deceit was when they first decided to go commercial and placate their sponsor, Google. There had been a setting to block 3rd-party images. (Ads.) It was in the settings UI. Mozilla removed it. In the process they also changed the name of the setting *and* changed the meaning of the setting values! The setting is still there, but it's now Permissions.default.image. The only setting in the "permissions" category. The setting used to be network.image.imageBehavior. So anyone who thought they were using that setting wouldn't have known it was disabled and would have needed to do research to find out their options. Itr's a good example, especially, because there's a grain of sanity in their logic. Images are increasingly coming from 3rd party servers or sub-domains, so blocking 3rd-party images has become less of a good idea. Yet Mozilla's approach was to try to prevent anyone from understanding the issue altogether, realizing they could control image loading, or succeeding in doing so. There's just enough of a discombobulated setting that remains in the prefs so that the Mozilla people can say, "What?? The setting's still there. You can still block images. Hey, we're all about choice and empowering the end-user." |
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