543801 - Can't delete current history if "never remember history" is set

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 513421

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[b_gillmann]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; de; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100115 Firefox/3.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; de; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100115 Firefox/3.6

If You change the history setting on never (german "niemals") >>after<< You have surfed around and want to erase the history (german "Neuste Chronik löschen") after that setting it is not possible

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Surf anywhere with history set on
2.Set history to never
3.Try to erase history, the hang down is not to choose
Actual Results:  
History available

Expected Results:  
No history

Erase history every time

Comment 1

[David Dahl :ddahl]

I think that is actually how it works. When you set never, you are not deleting anything, you are merely saying do not remember any history from now on. Your use case would require the label to be "Never remember history and delete the existing history"

This should be RESO:INVALID 

If you want to suggest a functionality change along with a new label, that is another issue.

Comment 2

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

this is probably a dupe even if i can't find the original atm.
i don't think it's invalid since makes sense that i should always be able to delete old history regardless what i want to do with new history.

Comment 3

[:Dossy Shiobara]

Could not find a dupe for this.

Also, confirmed on Mac FF that if "always start in a private browsing session" is checked in preferences, then "Tools->Clear Recent History..." becomes greyed out.  Clearing past history should not be this closely tied to whether future history should be recorded or not.

Comment 4

[Clarence Risher]

I agree that the option should not be greyed out. I somewhat manage a public access PC in a hackerspace. We have set firefox to never save history, which keeps data private after closing the browser, but sometimes a user wants to clear all their logins and cookies without closing the browser. Disabling this menu item (and the shift+ctrl+del shortcut key) appears to serve no purpose.

Also, for other sufferers of this bug, I will point out that you can work around it by going to Edit -> Preferences -> Privacy -> "Clear all current history". The functionality is still present and accessible from that point, it is only the menu item that has been disabled.

Comment 5

[Michael Kohler [:mkohler]]

We should also take a look at bug 463607.If we don't fix this bug, we should at least make the other options to clear the old history more discoverable. I think most user access CRH from the menubar and have no idea how they could do it otherwise. CC'ing Alex for this and adding "uiwanted" keyword.