701152 - Pages do not expire even if > browser.history_expire_days.mirror

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[Christoph Wickert]

I am using Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:7.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/7.0.1 from Fedora.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Set browser.history_expire_days.mirror to 60 and restarted firefox.
2. Open history, add the column "last accessed" and use it for sorting.

Actual results:
1. History still has an entry for "Older than 6 months"
2. "Older than 6 months" lists pages that were last accessed a year ago (30.11.2010 as I file this bug). This is even bigger than the default hard limit of browser.history_expire_days.mirror (180 days) and way bigger than the limit I set manually.

Expected results:
1. There should be no "Older than 6 months" but only "Older than a month" or "Older than 2 months"
2. "Older than X months" should not list pages that were last accessed before browser.history_expire_days.mirror

Comment 1

[Thomas Ahlblom]

Excerpt from discussion at http://blog.bonardo.net/2010/01/20/places-got-async-expiration:
"browser.history_expire_days.mirror has no effect, it’s stored for UI reasons. in Firefox 4 browser.history_expire_days_min is unused, you can Reset it and it will disappear."

Comment 2

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

right, we don't use anymore that pref.

you can try with this experimental add-on https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/expire-history-by-days/

Comment 3

[Christoph Wickert]

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [:mak] from comment #2)
> right, we don't use anymore that pref.

It's hard to guess if something is a bug or an intended change. It it's not used anymore,
- it should be removed automatically (just like browser.history_expire_days)
- all relevant information should be updated. This includes mozilla.org websites.
- you should make sure that users are aware of this change. E.g. by mentioning it in the release notes. When did it change?

> you can try with this experimental add-on
> https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/expire-history-by-days/

It's kind of sad that I need an addon to get back a functionality that was included since the Netscape days.

Comment 4

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

(In reply to Christoph Wickert from comment #3)
> It's kind of sad that I need an addon to get back a functionality that was
> included since the Netscape days.

That was the idea that distinguished firefox from netscape, core functionality is in the browser, additional functionality is provided by addons, so I'm not sure I buy that.

Btw, this happened in Firefox 4 and was announced on planet.mozilla, planet.firefox, on the mozilla newsgroups. Atm, I don't remember if it was in relnotes, sorry.

Comment 5

[Christoph Wickert]

Marco, thanks a lot for your reply.

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [:mak] from comment #4)
> That was the idea that distinguished firefox from netscape, core
> functionality is in the browser, additional functionality is provided by
> addons

For me this is a core functionality. But thanks for the extension, limiting the history to 180 days has dramatically improved responsiveness of the UI and lowered the memory footprint.