Closed Bug 327819 Opened 18 years ago Closed 17 years ago

Clearing history doesn't affect bookmarked items.

Categories

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Bookmarks & History
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
major

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: ria.klaassen, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Keywords: privacy) 

Steps to reproduce:

1. Make a new profile and delete history.dat, bookmarks_history.sqlite and delete the contents of bookmarks.html.
2. Run Firefox Places, go to some sites with many links and open some hundreds in tabs. Set them all to multiple homepages.
3. Set Options > Privacy > Settings > Clear Private Data to clear history on close. This is also a good way to prevent a crash on close of the build I'm using (1.9a1_2006021619).
4. Then inspect bookmarks_history.sqlite.
5. You'll find a lot of visited sites.

NB: Clear Browsing History Now seems to work however.
Keywords: privacy
Also clearing Saved Form Information on close does not work (still recognizable search terms in the file formhistory.sqlite), but there are no problems with the options Downloads, Cookies and Cache.
OS: Windows XP → All
Priority: -- → P4
Target Milestone: --- → Firefox 2 beta1
When you enter a search term in the Google box, the form information is still present. So this function is completely broken. This is not the case with the history, the entries seem gone in the Places view, but will possibly go on growing silently and unnoticed in the bookmarks_history.sqlite.
I'll try to find out how long and if it also happens if I set history to be deleted after 1 day.
Part of the last sentence was meant for bug 327818 :)
*** Bug 329248 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 329248 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20060310
Firefox/1.6a1 ID:2006031014 [cairo]

this WFM after Bug 328598 landed
History is correctly cleared on exit
It seems to clear history correctly now, it is also removed from the .sqlite file but not form history.
- Go to Google, do searches for goat, cat and dog and the form info will still follow you every time you click in the Google box.
Clear Private Data is not clearing what I previously typed in the search bar in FF nor is it clearing some "visited links" that I previously clicked on.  I have to actually delete the FF cache to get those links to show as unvisited.

NEW Profile; NO Extensions; BUILD: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20060311 Firefox/1.5 ID:2006031109

~B
(In reply to comment #8)
> nor is it clearing some "visited links"
>
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20060311 Firefox/1.6a1
I tried this out:
- Put this in userContent.css to mark visited links: 
a:visited { -moz-outline: 1px dotted black ! important}
- Then I went to http://www.rnw.nl/nieuws/nederlands.html#3292436 and http://www.nu.nl/ and clicked on the first 5 links of both sites.
- In Tools > Options > Privacy > Settings I checked only to clear Browsing History when closing Firefox.
- Then I restarted Firefox, but when I went to both sites the markings of the visited links were gone. 
(In reply to comment #9)
> (In reply to comment #8)
> > nor is it clearing some "visited links"
> >
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20060311
> Firefox/1.6a1

Ria Klaassen,

You're using TRUNK and not BRANCH!  I'm seeing this on branch builds.  NEW Profile; NO Extensions; BUILD: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20060311 Firefox/1.5 ID:2006031109

~B


(In reply to comment #10)
>
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20060311 Firefox/1.5
Oh well, I hurried to the branch and the result is the same.
Maybe some links?

(In reply to comment #11)
> (In reply to comment #10)
> >
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20060311
> Firefox/1.5
> Oh well, I hurried to the branch and the result is the same.
> Maybe some links?
Ria,

This is what i'm seeing:

01) Launch FF (Latest build)
02) Navigate to http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=393693&sid=d61261d6433cd5c6c6a93a16a0d0eefa
03) Create a bookmark for http://tinderbox.mozilla.org/Mozilla1.8/
04) Click on Peter(6)'s link | Branch Tinderbox |
05) Close Tinderbox tab
06) Clear your history (to clean up visited links)
07) Observe that Peter(6)'s link | Branch Tinderbox | is still shown as being visisted even though you just cleared your history
08) Delete the bookmark for http://tinderbox.mozilla.org/Mozilla1.8/
09) Close FF and Delete bookmarks_history.sqlite
10) Launch FF
11) Navigate to http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=393693&sid=d61261d6433cd5c6c6a93a16a0d0eefa
12) Peter(6)'s link | Branch Tinderbox | is no longer marked as visited! 

It's reproducible each and every time...

Bryan


Bookmarked URLs aren't cleared when you clear history, is this what you're seeing?

The bookmark system just references items in history, so having a bookmarked URL locks an item in history (partially, information about *when* you visited it will be cleared).

We could clear out the visit count of bookmarks when you clear history which will make the links no longer colored (this is equivalent to having an unvisited bookmark, which doesn't affect history). I can't think of a good reason for doing this, however, since if you've bookmarked it you're clearly saying you want it to stay around.

The reason for keeping it is that autocomplete will be more accurate when we have visit counts. Autocomplete is *the* major way that people interact with their history, so the more accurate visit counts we can keep the better it will work. When people bookmark things, I think we have their permission to keep more information about it. We actually store about the same amount of information as the old bookmarking system, but having a visit count associated with a bookmark now affects history.
(In reply to comment #13)
> Bookmarked URLs aren't cleared when you clear history, is this what you're
> seeing?
> 
> The bookmark system just references items in history, so having a bookmarked
> URL locks an item in history (partially, information about *when* you visited
> it will be cleared).
> 
> We could clear out the visit count of bookmarks when you clear history which
> will make the links no longer colored (this is equivalent to having an
> unvisited bookmark, which doesn't affect history). I can't think of a good
> reason for doing this, however, since if you've bookmarked it you're clearly
> saying you want it to stay around.
> 
> The reason for keeping it is that autocomplete will be more accurate when we
> have visit counts. Autocomplete is *the* major way that people interact with
> their history, so the more accurate visit counts we can keep the better it will
> work. When people bookmark things, I think we have their permission to keep
> more information about it. We actually store about the same amount of
> information as the old bookmarking system, but having a visit count associated
> with a bookmark now affects history.

This would clearly be a departure of current behavior (pre-places) IMO.  I have many bookmarks that I created from links on certain websites.  When I clear my history I expect that it will be marked as unvisited next time I visit a page with that link.  If this is going to be the case going forward then you might as well remove the ability to "clear browser history" as it now appears that it's "broken" for links that you've clicked on once that just so happen to also be bookmarked.  It's also highly annoying!  :-(

Bryan
I'm changing this bug to refer to bookmarked items only. If there are other clearing issues, file separate bugs.
Summary: Clear Private Data when closing Firefox does not work → Clearing history doesn't affect bookmarked items.
Assignee: nobody → brettw
(In reply to comment #14)
>
That bookmarked URLs are shown as visited had also advantages. When you see visited links on an interesting page you don't need to click on them anymore for you know that it is a familiar link that was so important for you that you even bookmarked it. So it saves time. Another (related) advantage is that it prevents doubles in your bookmarks.
(In reply to comment #16)
> (In reply to comment #14)
> >
> That bookmarked URLs are shown as visited had also advantages. When you see
> visited links on an interesting page you don't need to click on them anymore
> for you know that it is a familiar link that was so important for you that you
> even bookmarked it. So it saves time. Another (related) advantage is that it
> prevents doubles in your bookmarks.

I disagree.  The whole point of visited links is to show that I visited that link (dependent upon the number of days I've told FF to remember visited links).  Yes, it's assumed that I visited during that session (or the number of days I've told FF to remember visited links) and this has been the case for years in all of the browsers I've used.  

If a user has configured FF to remember visited links for 9 days (which is the default) I doubt that user expects that links they clicked on one month ago and subsequently bookmarked to persist as visited more then 30 days later.  If i've never actually clicked on that link or navigated to that site via my bookmark in recent "history" then it should not be marked visited.  If this is going to be the case then I would suggest that you set everyones expectations, especially in regards to "Clear Browsing History" as it now works differently then it did prior to the places landing.  I now assume based on Brett's comment that this is not really a bug but more a change in behavior.  Had he not commented I would (rightly so) believe this was a new bug.  

Maybe you could color the link a different color to indicate that it's bookmarked but not recently visited or was visited one month ago even though that visit is past what I've configured FF to remember?

Bryan

I will make it reset visit counts of bookmarked items when you clear history. This will have the effect of reseting link coloring when that happens.
Hardware: PC → All
Target Milestone: Firefox 2 beta1 → Firefox 3 alpha2
Assignee: brettw → nobody
Severity: normal → major
Depends on: 360133
Priority: P4 → --
Target Milestone: Firefox 3 alpha2 → ---
confirmed that bookmarked items are cleared from history when history is cleared, so resolving. places has changed a lot since this was originally filed, so please file a new bug with updated steps and preferably a sample places.sqlite if you are still seeing similar or related issues.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 17 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
Bug 451915 - move Firefox/Places bugs to Firefox/Bookmarks and History. Remove all bugspam from this move by filtering for the string "places-to-b-and-h".

In Thunderbird 3.0b, you do that as follows:
Tools | Message Filters
Make sure the correct account is selected. Click "New"
Conditions: Body   contains   places-to-b-and-h
Change the action to "Delete Message".
Select "Manually Run" from the dropdown at the top.
Click OK.

Select the filter in the list, make sure "Inbox" is selected at the bottom, and click "Run Now". This should delete all the bugspam. You can then delete the filter.

Gerv
Component: Places → Bookmarks & History
QA Contact: places → bookmarks
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