330332 - Recognizable history in bookmarks_history.sqlite after being deleted

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect, P1)

Description

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Steps to reproduce:
1. Start Firefox without bookmarks and history.
2. Go to Google and do a search for a subject.
3. Visit 50 matches.
4. Open Places and delete each and every entry until there is nothing left.
5. Close Firefox and examine the bookmarks_history.sqlite.
Result: you'll still see lots of recognizable visited sites.

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

When I revisit the Google pages I still see 3 links marked as visited.
I don't see this after clearing history with the Clear Privacy Data tool.
Maybe Firefox should always clear everything that is not listed in history & bookmarks?

Comment 2

[Brett Wilson]

This is a side effect of making shutdown faster by not zero filling it. If we can figure out a good way to expire history while the browser is running and not on shutdown, we can fix this problem by turning on 0-fill again. Clearing history will always compress out unused files.

Comment 3

[Brett Wilson]

Fixed on branch and trunk by 0-fill option in sqlite makefile in bug 328598.

Comment 4

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

In a new clean profile I did a search for the word "lawyer".
I visited the first 50 results, then I deleted all history entries in places.
I restarted and went back to the 5 google pages. There were still 5 links marked as visited:

Epoq : Desktop Lawyer
Free Lawyer
WisBar | Current issue
New Jersey Law Network -Law by Topic
WisBar | Lawyer directory

But, if both spouses are searching for the word "lawyer" it is not so terrible after all :)

Comment 5

[Brett Wilson]

Did you clear your whole history or just delete the individual pages in places? It sounds like you just delete items from the places view.

Many things don't show in the places view. This is unchanged from the previous implementation. Frames including ads don't show. Many types of redirects don't show. You will never have the chance to delete these if you just look at them one at a time. Looking at the "epoq" example, that link was still visited because it was a redirect that was hidden from the history view.

If you want to cover your tracks, you have to clear history. I have talked about a "clear history since X" or for "this session" on the newsgroup which would solve this problem a little better, although it's very likely that won't make 2.0.

Comment 6

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

(In reply to comment #5)
>
I deleted history entries in places. 
Yes, thats's what I meant. That Firefox would only store links that I actually clicked on. More than that can never be useful for the user. 
Not because I want to cover my tracks. I am the only one who has access to this computer and I do quite normal things, nothing criminal or illegal. But because I always hated that Windows gathers unsolicitedly detailed information about everything you do on your own computer and never notifies the user that it does. It feels like Windows is your ennemy that needs to be beaten. It's clear that the designers of Windows never thought about this privacy problem. 

Comment 7

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

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