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H i delete all history of specified domain name -- FACEBOOK?



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 28th 18, 01:10 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
FACE
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 43
Default 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  
Old November 28th 18, 01:44 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default 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  
Old November 28th 18, 01:51 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default 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  
Old November 28th 18, 02:27 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
FACE
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 43
Default 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  
Old November 28th 18, 02:29 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
FACE
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 43
Default 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  
Old November 28th 18, 02:36 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
FACE
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 43
Default 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  
Old November 28th 18, 02:53 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default 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  
Old November 28th 18, 03:03 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default 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  
Old November 28th 18, 03:06 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default 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  
Old November 28th 18, 03:07 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default 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  
Old November 28th 18, 03:15 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default 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  
Old November 28th 18, 04:25 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
FACE
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 43
Default 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  
Old November 28th 18, 04:46 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default 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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