943789 - URLs of redirect pages/domains don't shown in history

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[Tobias B. Besemer [:BesTo] (QA)]

As far as I understand Bug 332120, FF is designed to don't show redirect pages/domains on some/all places in FF.

The problem for me is, that if I open the History and e.g. look at a day, I will/think I should see them.
And if I delete a day, I normally believe that I have deleted all URLs from the history, but this isn't!
And because they are not shown, I/you don't know what you have to search for.
Also I (and maybe a lot of people, too) thinking, that I see in the History the pages FF saves; all - not just some.


OK, how to reproduce?

- Take a new profile of FF to make sure there a no URLs in.
- Now take a redirecting page/domain to open. It works with a lot of
  pages/domains - e.g. advertisement/pop-up pages - but to make it easy, you
  can take fb.com, the facebook.com URL shortener.
- Now open a page on fb. E.g.: fb.com/Firefox.
-> fb redirects you now to http://www.facebook.com/Firefox.
- Now open you history.
-> You will see there an entry with http://www.facebook.com/Firefox.
- Now mark with you keyboard all entries of the day and delete them.
-> You history should now be empty again.
- Now enter in the search of the history: fb.com/Firefox
-> You will see an entry!

Comment 1

[Tobias B. Besemer [:BesTo] (QA)]

OK, the following happened now:
I have an FF25.0.1DE that I connected to Mozilla's Sync.
On a other PC I had an FF26b8DE.
On both FF I deleted the history completely via the Options/Privacy menu.
Then I closed the FF26b8DE and replaced it with an US Version for better bug reporting ...
After the install I opened it and added it to Sync.
After the sync I have this 'missing' URLs on this Version in my history.
But only on this browser.

So I don't know what's happened now!
Is this a reason of the sync, or differs the US Version from the DE Version and this is an 'translation problem' ???
Can an German person (maybe Kairo ???) confirm my problems ???

Here are some (redirecting) URLs/Pages that I normally don't see in the history (but can search for):
http://fb.com
http://sf.net
https://crash-stats.mozilla.com
https://mail.google.com/mail/?tab=[...]
https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?[...]
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer
http://facebook.com/
https://accounts.google.com/CheckCookie?[...]
https://accounts.youtube.com/accounts/SetSID?[...]
http://www.adcash.com/script/packcpm.php?[...]
https://www.facebook.com/n/?[...]
http://adfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/[...]

I shortened some URLs by [...] ...

Ones again:
A user (I) expect to see _all_ saved URLs in the history - not only the most! ;-)
So FF should show all, or don't save them.

Comment 2

[teika kazura]

Hi. It doesn't seem to reproduce with a new profile. But I found a slight modification reproduce.

OS: Linux
Version: 27.0

1. Create a new profile. Suppose its directory is ~/.mozilla/firefox/foo.
2. Quit firefox.
3. Do:
  $ cd ~/.mozilla/firefox/
  $ rm -r foo; mkdir foo
4. Start firefox in that profile again.
5. Follow OP's procedure. This URL works, too:
http://amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=firefox

The deleted URLs show up also in the locationbar auto-completion.

I've been annoyed with this bug for years, so it's not a recent regression.

Thank you very much for reading. Regards.

Comment 4

[teika kazura]

No, this bug is not a dup of bug 919280.

This bug: Redirect sources (RS) are not accessible from the history window. It's OK. However FF remembers RS URI, so even if you delete all history in the history window, RS  show up in the location bar by auto-completion.

The referred bug 919280: The reporter complains that RS do not show up in the history window.

Thanks Mark Banner for taking care.

Comment 5

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

(In reply to teika kazura from comment #4)
> No, this bug is not a dup of bug 919280.
> 
> This bug: Redirect sources (RS) are not accessible from the history window.
> It's OK. However FF remembers RS URI, so even if you delete all history in
> the history window, RS  show up in the location bar by auto-completion.

This bug is indeed a wontfix.
The history window is a navigation ui, not a privacy management ui. As such its view is optimized for navigation, not for privacy.
If you want to manage privacy, you should rather use privacy features like Private Browsing, Clear Recent History or Forget about this Site. Those are built to manage your privacy.
For that reason, selecting and deleting things from the history view is not a privacy-safe operation.

Comment 6

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

(also because removing things from history doesn't remove them from cookies, offline-data, and the other many sources who could have a reference to it).

Comment 7

[teika kazura]

"WONTFIX"
With due respect, I disagree. In fact, the code will be simpler by fixing this.

The solution will be "record the url in the browser history **after** redirect", and that's all. OTOH the current spec is unnecessarily complex, by remembering both URLs before and after the redirect, and hiding the redirect source from the history window. 

The code will be slimmer, so it'll be less bug prone, too.

> The history window is a navigation ui, not a privacy management ui[...]
> If you want to manage privacy[...]

Yes, absolutely. But neither OP nor I have said such thing. ;-)

I understand the priority of this bug is not high. 
Thank you very much for your effort in firefox. Regards.

Comment 8

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

It's fine to disagree, unfortunately it's hard to satisfy everyone, a decision has to be taken one way or the other.