buzzy | Aug. 9th, 2012

Warning: The stuff I talk about isn't for the meek. If the stuff in today's and yesterday's entries frighten you, the easiest way to do what I'm talking about is in the last paragraph, though you will lose all your history and not just items you choose yourself.

I mentioned about clearing out my Firefox history in yesterday's entry...well, I cleared it out a little too well because about half my bookmarks were partially missing. The title was there, but the URL was missing. I used the Previous Versions feature of Windows 7 (sucks that they got rid of it for Windows 8) to restore my places.sqlite file and cleared it out again, but this time I was a bit more careful. I started by removing history that for some reason is in the Bookmarks part of Firefox first. (Ctrl+Shift+B in the browser, then browse through the history section) There were a lot of sites in there that I deleted from the history (Ctrl+H in the browser). There were still a lot of sites in the SQLite file, which I removed after checking that they weren't part of my bookmarks. (I also backed up the bookmarks, just in case I screwed things up.) I started removing stuff from moz_hosts, then moved on to moz_places. After removing a good chunk of stuff from moz_places, it was time to clean up the moz_historyvisits table, which relies on the moz_places table. I did this with a SQL command: DELETE FROM moz_historyvisits WHERE moz_historyvisits.place_id NOT IN (SELECT id FROM moz_places) Then, to delete all the records of when each site was visited except one of them: DELETE FROM moz_historyvisits WHERE id NOT IN (SELECT id FROM moz_historyvisits GROUP BY place_id). If you don't want to have anyone know the exact time you visited certain sites, you can set them to right now by running this SQL command: UPDATE moz_historyvisits SET visit_date=strftime('%s','now')*1000000. You can also clear all the information about what you typed into the address bar by running this: DELETE FROM moz_inputhistory. You may also want to dig through the icons in the moz_favicons table. I didn't have too many in there, but this query should work: DELETE FROM moz_favicons WHERE id NOT IN (SELECT DISTINCT favicon_id FROM moz_places WHERE favicon_id IS NOT NULL) All the SQL queries were run from SQLite Manager's Execute SQL tab. After that, my database was 25% of its original size and this time I got to keep the history I wanted and bookmarks.

Another place you might find some history is in the chromeappsstore.sqlite file (there's a drop-down you can use to load it in the SQLite Manager.) The webappsstore2 table (the only one as far as I can tell) has every site that you didn't want displayed in the new tab screen, even if you removed the site from the history. You can either edit this list by looking for "blockedLinks" in the key column, or just wipe it out by entering a query like UPDATE webappsstore2 SET value="{}" WHERE scope="batwen.:about" AND key="blockedLinks". Note that it is in JSON format.

In content-prefs.sqlite, Firefox stores information about certain preferences on specific websites. The information I saw included the zoom, the last used directory for uploading and downloading files, and the spell check language. In the groups table, there are a list of domains you've visited, even if you've cleared your history. Once you delete the individual sites you don't intend to visit again (or just right-clicking the table in the list on the left sidebar and clicking Empty Table), you can run this SQL query to clear out the related items in the prefs table: DELETE FROM prefs WHERE groupID NOT IN (SELECT id FROM groups)

Miscellany: There's the cookies.sqlite file, but it seems that deleting them in Firefox deletes them in the file too. I also use CookieCuller to manage my cookies, though there are many cookie managing addons to choose from. Also, if you clear your download history, the downloads.sqlite file will be empty. The formhistory.sqlite file contains all the items you've typed into one-line text boxes, when you first used them, when you last used them, and how many times you've used them. I think it even has a hint of what site you used them on. I use a form history managing addon, so this was already fairly clean for me. The moz_hosts table in permissions.sqlite might have some sites you cleared out of your history and/or can't even remember visiting. Since there's only one table, you can either flush it out to have Firefox forget those preferences or delete sites you don't want Firefox remembering. In my case, everything with a value in the expireTime field was something I could delete. The remainder were permissions to install addons for the Firefox addon site and to have popup windows appear on my credit union site, with certain unsavory third-party sites not being permitted to save cookies. There's also the urlclassifier3.sqlite file, which is ridiculously huge. In my case, the moz_classifier table has nearly 200K rows and the moz_subs table has nearly 50K rows. I guess when I know more about what's in there, I might post about it.

Note that a much easier way to really clear your history would be to back up your bookmarks and delete the places.sqlite file. To backup the bookmarks push Ctrl+Shift+B, click Import and Backup, then click Backup. Save that file somewhere. Next, type "about:support" in the address bar and hit enter. Click the "Show Folder" button, which should be next to some text saying "Profile Folder". When the profile folder appears, close all Firefox windows. Delete the places.sqlite file. Reopen Firefox, and your bookmarks should automatically be restored. If they're not, push Ctrl+Shift+B again, click Import and Backup, then go to Restore, and Choose File. Load the file you saved earlier and you should be good to go. If you're really paranoid about your history, which is stored in various ways in more files than the one deleted, you can start a new profile every so often and delete the old one. I don't know how good the reset feature is at removing history that's stored in other files.