450924 - Browser history cannot be cleared

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[Tim Conway]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1

clear private data, exit/reopen with clear on exit, no matter what, if you type "h" of "http" in the title bar, it offers a listing of every page I've ever typed in the title bar.  I really don't see the point of having the privacy features if an irrevocable history is retained and offered to anyone in the family who bothers to look.
If there were a separate function to clear URL history, I'd use that and call it poor design.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.type a URL in the address bar
2.clear history by any means desired
3.see the URL in the address bar history
Actual Results:  
URL remains no matter what steps you take

Expected Results:  
URL history cleared

cleared the URL history

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Do you see the history or the bookmarks ?
The URL Bar dropdown contains both.
Did you searched for existing bugs before you filed this one ?

Comment 2

[Kevin Brosnan]

The smart location bar behaves differently than the Firefox 2 address bar for an explanation see http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Smart+Location+Bar Firefox 3.1 will allow you to tune your search results http://ed.agadak.net/2008/07/firefox-31-restricts-matches-keywords

Comment 3

[Michael Roberts]

By way of clarification and extension, I observe the following:

1) Change the setting "browser.url.maxRichresults" from the default (12) to -1.
2) Exit, and restart FF.
   The browser history is NOT displayed in the address bar. BUT. . .
3) Restart "about:config", and change "browser.url.maxRichresults" back to 12.
   The browser history is back.

This behavior is repeatable, even after the "Clear Private Data" command is used.

I see this as a security flaw. "Clear" and "Delete" should be permanent. In addition, I can find no setting, registry entry, or XML file where these recently used URLs are stored.

Comment 4

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

(In reply to comment #3)
> This behavior is repeatable, even after the "Clear Private Data" command is
> used.
Are you seeing items with stars at the right, or no?  If so, you are seeing bookmarks, which are not cleared with Clear Private Data.  Please see comment 2 for more details.

Comment 5

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

for point 3: they are of course back because you changed the variable back to
the old value. (unless you cleared the history which would wipe the history but of course not the bookmarks)