This prompt since then has been removed by Mozilla. Firefox users who want to re-enable the prompt in the Firefox browser can install the AskForSanitize add-on to do that. The add-on basically displays the clear recent history window whenever the user closes the browser.

Here it is then possible to clear everything or only select data sets. Users can for instance delete the cache, browsing and download history or site preferences in the dialog. The time range to clear pulldown menu can be used to delete data that is older than the selected time range.

The Firefox extension ships with a toolbar button that triggers the delete browsing data prompt on mouse click. It is not added automatically to a toolbar, which means that users need to place it there manually (by right-clicking a toolbar, selecting customize and dragging and dropping the button to the desired location on a Firefox toolbar).

One question that may come up is this: Why would anyone want to display the delete browsing history window on exit if it can be configured to run on exit automatically?

The core reason here obviously would be if the data only needs to be deleted at times and not on all exits of the browser. The automation here is a more comfortable than triggering the deletion dialog manually whenever it is needed.

Which leads directly to the following question: How often do you clear your browsing data?

That’s where the History disable button add-on may come in handy. You could call it a lite version of private browsing mode as it only disables the Firefox history when it is active. It will block the Internet history for the time it is active. This includes both the History menu in the web browser as well as the auto-complete feature when entering text in the address bar of the Firefox browser.

The main advantage of the add-on is that you can continue using the browser with all the tabs that are currently open. The disadvantage is that traces of visited sites remain on the system. This includes among other things the cached files on the local hard drive.

Sometimes though disabling the browsing history may be enough. This can be the case when you are shopping for a birthday present for a loved one for instance, and more generally whenever you want to avoid that websites appear as auto-complete suggestions or the history of the browser.

The add-on adds a button to Firefox’s navigational toolbar. If you have disabled that toolbar, like I did, you may need to move it to another address bar. Just select View > Toolbars > Customize and drag and drop the button to another toolbar to have it accessible all the time.

A click on the button then enables or disables the history function in the browser. Firefox users can install the History disable button by visiting the Mozilla Add-on repository.

But going back multiple pages is not very comfortable this way, as you would have to click on the back button multiple times to do that. Even worse, if you cannot remember how many pages to go back, you need to stop after each click on the back button to look at the page to find out if it is the one you wanted to re-open.

The History feature is also not really suitable for going back multiple times. First, it takes more clicks to open the menu, and it appears if not all of the previous pages are listed on the page, as it is limited to the last 15 entries.

Thankfully though it is rather easy to go back multiple pages in Firefox. The feature is however not overly obvious to the user. All that’s need to be done is to right-click the back button to see all the pages that have been previously open in the active tab.

This is actually also working for the forward button in case you need to go forward a few pages. Now, a right-click on the back or forward button lists the last open pages. A left-click on one of the entries loads it in the current tab. A middle-click on an entry launches it in a new blank tab.

Another option is to use the cursor keys on the keyboard to navigate through the history items and the enter key to load them.

Mozilla recently published a new Mozilla Labs add-on called Recall Monkey (what’s with all those silly names?) that improves Firefox’s History by a lot.

The add-on taps into Firefox’s history database to provide the user with better search options.

The restartless add-on places a single icon into the Firefox status bar. A click on that icon launches the search interface in a new tab.

It consists of a search bar at top that powers the auto-updating search results. If you enter Firefox for instance you get all Firefox related history items on one page.

The real strength of the program comes from the preferences and options on the left. Here it is possible to change the time range from all time to last 24 hours, week, month or year for instance. This can reduce the number of results greatly.

Sites can be prioritized or excluded from the results. Say you want to find a specific add-on that you know is hosted on the Mozilla website. You could prioritize the Mozilla domain to give it some extra weight in the search results. This basically pushes Mozilla based results to the top of the list. Excluding sites on the other hand filters history items from those domains from the results automatically.

The last available option is to prioritize bookmarks, which can be very handy for users like me who use bookmarks extensively.

The one thing that I’m not really happy with is that Recall Monkey forgets about the prioritized and excluded sites when you close the history window. An option to remember those settings (per search or globally) would be really handy. Another handy option would be to add filters to distinct between local and remote files.

Mozilla Labs’s Recall Monkey is available for direct installation over at the Mozilla Firefox website. The add-on is compatible with all versions of Firefox from version 4 on.

The Firefox add-on From Where To Where collects those information and makes the available in the browser. This can be helpful in numerous occasions, for instance to re-open that helpful resource page that lead you to the current page, or a specific search page.

While that’s also possible with the standard history, it may not be as easy with it, especially so if you cannot remember the title or url of the web page you are looking for. With From Where To Where, you only need to know one page that you have opened after or before you opened the page you are looking for to find it. Plus, you can bookmark the page of the extension to open it directly in a browser tab.

You open the extension in a new tab via the Tools -> FromWhereToWhere menu. The page features a search on top that you can use to find a specific page title or url.

The history that is then displayed to you is threaded, exactly in the order that you have visited those pages. You can use the display to retrace your browsing steps to find the specific page again that you have been wanting to find. You can open pages directly with a double-click. The history structure remains even if you open pages that way. This is unlike the structure of Firefox’s default history which moves newly opened web properties to the top of the list.

The extension runs locally in the browser which is reassuring for privacy conscious users who do not want to give third parties access to their browsing history.

From Where To Where integrates with the popular extension Scrapbook. All links that have been added to Scrapbook by the user are highlighted in the extension for easier identification.

Link suggestions can be provided by the extension as well. You can select the option from the Tools menu. Related and interesting links are directly shown in an overlay on the page if the option is activated. You may need to click the Refresh button once before the links are displayed.

From Where To Where is available from the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository. You find usage examples and detailed instructions there as well. The add-on is compatible with all versions of Firefox from Firefox 3.5 on.

You need to switch back to the original tab if you want to access the history of that tab, which is not a very comfortable thing to do.

Tab History Redux is a Firefox add-on that changes the browser’s default behavior. It configures child tabs in a way that they inherit the tab history of the originating tab.

Say you open Ghacks and navigate around a bit. You read some articles and find an interesting external link. A double-click on the link opens it in a new tab. You cannot not go back to the page on Ghacks on the new tab originally. With Tab History Redux you can. This can for instance be helpful if you want to open another link on the original article on Ghacks, or want to read the article again or look at the article’s comments. The extension enables you to do that without switching to the original tab first.

Please note that the extension works only if you open a link in a tab in the same browser window. You won’t be able to access the tab history of the original tab if you open links in a new browser window instead.

Tab History Redux is a helpful extension for the Firefox web browser. It is compatible with all versions of Firefox from Firefox 4 on. Interested users can download the Firefox add-on from the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

Why is the browser recording the history? To give the user a tool at hand to open previously visited websites. Browsers like Firefox integrate the history by default in other parts of the browser. This includes for instance the address bar. Firefox will search the bookmarks and history to display suggestions when the user begins typing in the address bar.

The default options to delete entries from the web browsing history are limited. It is possible to remember the history, or force Firefox to ignore the history.

The Library is the main management tool for the Firefox browsing history and bookmarks. Here it is possible to edit and delete individual history items. But that’s obvious not an optimal solution. The Firefox add-on History Deleter offers a better automated history management solution.

History Deleter basically allows the user to configure history deleting rules for specific pages, domains or titles. The following rules are available:

• Keywords: This matches the keyword to the domain name or page title
• Days visited before: Will only delete history entries if the site has been visited before x days
• Deadlinks: Will only delete links from matching sites if the links are no longer valid
• Visited at least two times: Will only delete items in history if the page has been visited at least twice

The add-on can execute the deletion on Firefox exit, when the history exceeds a certain number of entries or on demand. The rules can be modified for each entry individually. It is for instance possible to configure automatic deletion of entries for specific domains so that they never appear in the history after the browsing session.

The options page offers link checking and statistic generation parameters. Here it is possible to change the link checker interval, the number of concurrent connections or the page fetching interval.

History Deleter offers web browsing statistics of the browsing history. The main purpose of the add-on is however to offer the user a rule based management of the history, in particular better deletion options of individual items.

The option to clear the recent history has been included in Firefox for quite some time, but many Firefox users do not know that this option exists. The Clear Recent History menu becomes available after pressing Ctrl-Shift-Del, or following the Tools > Clear Recent History Path.

The new menu window that opens up displays all kinds of data that can be deleted, and a time range at the top that is often overlooked as it displays Everything by default.

clear recent history

A click on the pull down menu however reveals time ranges that can be selected, for instance the last hour, two hours or four hours.

To pick a harmless example. Say you have decided to shop for a birthday present for a household member. Instead of using the private browsing mode you could simply use the browser as normal, and open the Clear Recent History menu afterwards to delete all data that has been accumulated in the last x hours so that it becomes impossible to retrace the last browsing session.

HistoryBlock specializes in blocking information in the browser. It can automatically block a website’s records in the Firefox history, the download manager and the recently opened tabs information. It does not prevent the creation of temporary Internet files or cookies.

The easiest way to work with the Firefox add-on is to right-click in a tab with a site active that you want to block from the history in Firefox. A block this entry is automatically added to the context menu upon installation. Clicking on that entry and confirming the intention to block that website is enough to prevent the site from appearing in the history in Firefox.

Websites can also be added or removed in the add-on’s options. Who would want to use this add-on? The developer has created it for his own personal workplace, to prevent others from using the history to discover the sites that were accessed in the past.

HistoryBlock’s main use is to prevent the identification of specific sites during a short analysis of the browser, which is usually done by looking at the open tabs, history, and downloaded files. It will not prevent the discovery of those sites in the same session if the analysis is thorough, e.g. by taking a closer look at cookies or the cache.

Users should consider using HistoryBlock in conjunction with the option to clear private information in Firefox on exit. Cleaning cookies and temporary files ensures that the remaining traces of those site visits are deleted in the browser. The data that Firefox clears automatically on exit can be configured in the options.

Click on the Tools menu, then Options. Switch to the Privacy tab and locate Clear History when Firefox closes. Enable that parameter if it is deactivated, and click the Settings button thereafter.

clear history on exit

This ensures that the history, cookies and other information are deleted automatically whenever Firefox is closed.

The websites are stored as hashes in the browser. There is no real text list of the websites that are blocked from appearing in the browser’s history, something that the developer of Autonito for Chrome should consider to improve the extension.

History Block adds a third option for Firefox users as it enables them to block specific hosts from appearing in the web browser’s history. And history in this case means the standard history, the download manager and the recently opened tabs list.

The Firefox add-on is relatively easy to use with the exception of managing existing blocked hosts. New hosts can be added either from the menu of the add-on or more comfortably by right-clicking on the page and selecting Block This from the available options.

Once a website has been added to the list it will not appear in the browsing history. Managing those blocked websites is unfortunately not as easy as there is no listing of all hosts that have been blocked, at least not in the web browser itself. This is somewhat understandable as anyone would know which websites the user visited at least once by looking at the blocked websites in that listing.

The only option to unblock websites is to enter their hostname into the options of the add-on. This is not very comfortable. History Block can be downloaded from the official Mozilla Firefox add-on portal.

Firefox 3 History Recovery helps in all other cases. It is a command line tool that can analyse uncompressed disk images to discover traces of the four SQLite tables moz_places, moz_historyvisits, moz_formhistory and moz_downloads. What the recovery tool can return are therefor the visited urls, the form history and the downloads.

Firefox 3 History Recovery is a forensic tool and therefor not designed with usability in mind. It can only be executed from the command line and the biggest problem that users face is that they need to create a disk image for this process. The developer mentioned a few tools that can be used to create those disk images: winhex, ftk imager and dcfldd.

The program itself is easy to use in comparison. All the user needs to do is to enter the command

ff3hr -i


to start the recovery process. The command line tool will create four new text documents in its directory that will contain the information found on the disk image. Firefox 3 History Recovery is an Open Source software program that is available at the Sourceforge website.

That’s where the new Firefox add-on History Tree comes into play. History Tree can generated a tree structure from the Firefox history in realtime. It can either visualize the history of one tab at a time or all tabs at once.

The name and time of each website are displayed in rectangles on the screen. Connections visualize that websites have been opened after each other. A color code is being used to provide additional information:

• Orange: Active Firefox Tab
• Yellow: Open Tabs
• Blue: Closed Tabs
• White: Pages that can be accessed with the back and forward buttons in Firefox
• Gray: Pages that cannot be accessed with the back and forward buttons

A click on the question mark will display a preview screenshot of the selected website on the same screen while a click on the triangle hides the sub-pages from the display and replacing them with a number representing their amount. Websites can be opened by left-clicking on their boxes in the history tree window.

Filters are available on top to display specific tabs only. Those can be open tabs, open pages, selected tabs or closed tabs. A search aids the user in finding information faster.

It is furthermore possible to change the tree view to a thumbnail view of the visited websites instead. This will display all websites as thumbnail images in the same window.

History Tree distinguishes between different Firefox windows, something that the default Firefox history manager is not offering as it only displays a combination of all visited pages regardless of the window they have been opened in.

One thing that would be nice would be the configuration of a default action when left-clicking on a thumbnail or box in the History Tree window so that users could open sites with just one click instead of having to work with the selection box all the time.

Some users, especially those with the Google Toolbar installed, experienced a huge history database that had a size of several hundreds Megabytes. A good way of speeding up the Firefox web browser is to limit the history that it records.

Most users know that it is possible to change the minimum days the history is stored in the Firefox options. What only a few know is that there are additional settings in the about:config dialog that make it possible to change the hard limit and the maximum days a website is kept in the history.

To speed up Firefox by limiting the history do the following: Open a new web browser tab and load the page [about:config]. Now filter for the term [browser.history] and locate the following three parameters:

• browser.history_expire_days: The maximum days that Firefox stores websites in the history database. (default 180)
• browser.history_expire_days_min: The minimum days that Firefox stores websites in the history database (default 90)
• browser.history_expire_sites: Defines the hard limit (that is the maximum) of websites that are stored in the Firefox history. Reducing the amount from 40000 to a lower value can help a lot.

Reducing both the minimum and maximum values to a lower number can improve the performance of the web browser especially during startup. There are no perfect values which means that the user has to experiment a bit to find the values best suited for the browsing situation. Suggested values are 7,14,28 or 56 days for both settings. Users who want to get rid of the history completely need to use 0 as the value in both parameters.

Restarting the web browser after changing the parameters should get rid of the websites that exceed the maximum that has been set by the user. It might be needed to optimize the SQLite database after the procedure to ensure that the database is not fragmented because of this change.

Firefox users have another possibility in the form of the Firefox History Block add-on. This add-on allows to specify websites or domains that should not be added to the Firefox history. Every other website and domain is added to the Firefox history normally.

New websites and domains can be added by simply opening the options in the Firefox add-on menu which gives users the opportunity to block urls from being displayed in the Firefox history. The very same menu offers the means to unblock websites the same way they are blocked. There is unfortunately no way of managing the list of blocked add-ons more easily. There is no way of displaying the blocked websites and domains at the moment.

The Block History add-on is available at the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

Historian is a free portable software program that can process the browsing history of several popular web browsers and export the information into csv or text format. Supported browsers are Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox 2 and 3, Google Chrome and Opera. This includes information about bookmarks, the browsing history, downloads, cookies and cache information.

The usability of the software program is not optimal. One has to drag and drop the files that are storing the information from the web browser’s directories into the interface to process them. This can obviously only be done if the user knows the location and names of those files. It is likely that only a minority knows that Firefox is storing its bookmarks in a file called places.sqlite or that Opera is storing information about file downloads in download.dat.

The only other limitation is that the only files of the same type can be analyzed at the same time. There is practically no way of adding all browsing history files of various installed web browsers in one go to the application because of their different formats. The workaround would be to create the csv files (or text) for each source file and copy paste the information into one big csv file in the end.

It would be a great improvement if the software developer would add an automatic scan of the system to the software program. It would also be nice if different files could be queued in the application so that they could be processed together.

Historian on the other hand is a versatile portable program that can identify the browsing history of all popular web browsers with the exception of Safari.

Thumbstrips to the rescue. This Firefox add-on peps up the Firefox history function. It adds a toolbar at the bottom of Firefox above the status bar that displays thumbnails of the pages that have been visited recently. The page title and the time of the last visit are displayed as well.

A click on a thumbnail loads that website again immediately. It is possible to change the order of the thumbnails and stop the recording of thumbnails. If you like you can keep thumbnails of ten websites in that bar and use it as a quick load function. Moving the mouse to the right or left end of the screen will scroll the thumbnails automatically in that direction.

The hotkey F2 displays and hides the toolbar which continues to record pages if the recording is still active. Thumbstrips can be saved as well and everyone with the extension may load them. This could be very interesting for a research project for instance.

Found at Tech Malaya and Firefox Mastery