How to delete Top Sites, Bookmarks or History entries in Firefox for Android
If you are using the mobile version of the Firefox web browser on your Android device, you have probably noticed that it does a couple of things different from how they are handled on the desktop version of Firefox.
When you open a new tab for example, or start the browser app anew, you are automatically taken to a listing of top sites.
The algorithm that picks those sites is similar to the one used by desktop Firefox. Usually, top sites are sites that you have visited the most in the mobile browser since the last reset of the data.
The listing may look different depending on what you open. If you open a new tab, the top sites listing is displayed as text links only, but if you load about:home, you get thumbnail representations of the websites you visited instead.
With that said, the listing itself is identical regardless of where it is opened.
It can happen that you encounter a site in the top sites listing, or in the bookmarks or history, that you do not want to see there. Maybe you are certain that you will never open it again, or do not want another person that is using your smartphone or tablet occasionally to find out about it.
Removing Top Sites, Bookmarks or History entries
You can remove entries that Firefox Mobile displays on the new tab page or the homepage in the following way:
- Move your finger over the entry that you want to delete and hold it down on it until a menu appears.
- Select Remove from the context menu to delete it from the display.
- A page removed message appears indicating that it has been successfully been deleted.
Note: Firefox ships with four internal pages (Firefox: Support, Firefox Customize with add-ons, Firefox: Start and Firefox: About your browser) that cannot be removed from the top sites listing. If you long-press on any of those, a remove option is not displayed in the context menu. You can remove those entries if you switch to Bookmarks on the other hand, as a Remove option is displayed here then that you can invoke to delete the links.
A removed tab may appear again in the top sites listing when you open it the next time, or as often as necessary to make it appear again here depending on how often you have opened other sites displayed here.
Clearing private data will remove all sites from the top sites listing that are not bookmarked as well. To clear the data, do the following:
- Tap on the menu button while the home page is displayed, or while a website is displayed in a tab in Firefox for Android.
- Select Settings from the options, and on the next page Privacy.
- Tap on Clear private data and there on clear data to remove all temporary data from the mobile browser.
Update: It appears that Mozilla has removed the option to remove the first six topsites displayed in Firefox for Android. It is not clear why the company made the decision to do so.
There is a workaround for that, but it is not pretty. If you do not use topsites at all, you can clean them by tapping on menu, selecting Settings, then Privacy, and there Clear private data. Unlike in Firefox for desktop systems, there is no option to do that every time you close the application.
The other option is to pin six pages to the topsites, so that they are always displayed on top. All other popular pages that you open are displayed beneath the selection, and they can still be removed with the long-tap.
Advertisement
Thanks for the tip Martin.
It is for these kinds of posts that I follow GHacks.
What’s up with the generic comment, are you a bot?
2G?
Where on the planet is that still in use? I was forced to give up using my RAZRV3 years ago because 2G was phased out by AT&T.
Everywhere 3G has been turned off and you don’t have LTE coverage, and believe me there are many developed countries where this is the case and if it weren’t for 2G you wouldn’t even be able to make a phone call.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe tha term “2G” is in the article. Perhaps you are referring to “AGM G2”??
@Martin
Your website has gone insane.
When I the post button I then saw my comment posted on a different article page. When I opened this article again, it is here.
@Tachy @Martin Brinkmann
” Your website has gone insane. ”
Same here. Has happened several times.
@Tachy,
@Martin P.,
For over two weeks now,
I’ve been seeing “Comments” posted by subscribers appearing in different, unrelated articles.
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572991
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572951
For the time being,
it would be better to specify the “article name and URL” at the beginning of the post.
@tachy a lot of non-phone devices with a sim in them rely on 2G, at least here in europe.
Usually things reporting usage or errors/alarms on something remote that does not get day to day inspection in person. They are out there in vast numbers doing important work. Reliable, good range. The low datarate is no problem at all in those cases.
3G is gone or on its last legs everywhere, but this stuff still has too much use to cancel.
Anyhow, interesting that they would put that in. I can see the point if you suspect a hostile 2G environment (amateur eavesdroppers with laptop, ranging up to professional grade MITM fake towers while “strangely” not getting the stronger crypto voip 4G because it is being jammed, and back down to something as old ‘stingray’ devices fallen into the wrong hands).
But does this also mean that they have handled and rolled out a fix for that nasty 4G ‘pwn by broadcast’ problem you reported earlier this year? I had 4G disabled due to that, on the off chance that some of the local criminals would buy some cheap chinese gear, download a working exploit and probe every phone in range all over town in the hope of getting into phones of the police.
>”While most may never be attacked in stingrays, it is still recommended to disable 2G cellular connections, especially since it does not have any downsides.”
The downside would be losing connectivity. I spend a lot of time way out in the countryside where there’s often no service or almost none. My network allows 2G, and I need it sometimes. I have an option on the phone to disable 2G, I may do that when I’m in the city and I have good 5G connectivity, but not out in the country.
I would imagine that the stingray exploits, like most of the bad things in this world, are probably things you will run into in the crowded big cities.
I stopped using it in a mobile (Wi-Fi line) environment, so I’m almost ignorant of the actual situation,
But the recent reality in Japan makes me realize that “the infrastructure of the web is nothing more than a papier-mâché fiction”.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/17/google-chrome-to-enable-https-first-by-default-for-all-users/#comment-4572402
It is already beyond the scope of what an individual can do.
What we should be aware of is the reality that “governments and those in power want to control the world through the Web”, and efforts to counter (resist and prevent) such ambitions are necessary.
Why do you want people to disable the privacy features? Hmmmmm?
Now You: do you plan to keep the Ads privacy features enabled?
I’d like to tell you, but apparently if you make a post critical of Google, you get censored. * [Editor: removed, just try to bring your opinion across without attacking anyone]
@Martin
You website is still psychotic. Comments attach to random stories.
@Martin please do fix the comments, it’s completely insane commenting here! :[
@Martin
The comments are seriously messed up on gHacks now. These comments are mixed with the article at the below URL.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/18/android-how-to-disable-2g-cellular-connections-to-improve-security/
And comments on other articles are from as far back as 2010.
What does this article has anything to do with all the comments on this article? LOL I think this Websuite is ran by ChatGPT. every article is messed up. Some older comments from 2015 shown up in recant articles, LOL
The picture captioned “Clearing the Android Auto’s cache might resolve the issue” is from Apple Carplay ;)
How about other things that matter:
Drop survival?
Screen toughness?
Degree of water and dust protection?