[BulletProof1]

I was just browsing the Miscellaneous Tech and happened to read the "Being watched" posting. It made me think of something that happened to me...just yesterday.

I erase my Firefox history quite frequently, but I don't have anyone but myself using this computer. So, I guess I just erase it out of habit. Actually I erase everything....cookies, cache & everything you can check in the history box. I don't save passwords or even allow my browsers to remember passwords.

HERE IS MY STORY & QUESTION:

I visited a site yesterday and was scrolling thru pages of information about programs to help me work on my computer. The site was mentioned to me by my local ISP tech (a friend). I bought my desktop computer from them. They fix it for me (if I should have any hardware problems) cause they got lots of parts for these boxes. I try to solve most software problems myself.

Anyway this site has loads of programs (freeware) for working on software issues. But, you have to click "next" to view pages in order. For example: They don't provide a way to get on site & jump to page 22. So, you must start with page 1 and scroll & click to get to the page you want. Maybe there are commands (I don't know about) to speed this up...but, I don't know 'em...lol.

Anyway, I started thinking maybe I could use my Firefox history to find the page I wanted. Sure enough firefox lists each page (with page number shown). So, then I wondered if I could figure how to save this Firefox history in a folder somewhere on my computer. So that, when I delete my history...I will still be able to find those pages in the folder I save.

As I was poking around with my Firefox history stuff...I happened to see a folder in Firefox called January. I clicked on it and lo & behold!!!....there is info on all kinds of sites I visited in January. What the heck am I erasing...if everything I ever do...is still in Firefox??

Oh....I just recently upgraded to Firefox 3.6....so it also is remembering sites I went to in the 3.5 version of Firefox. I did delete a couple line items in my Firefox history....and they disappear...but, I don't feel like deleting stuff line by line. I just don't like the idea that it is being saved, when I am supposed to be erasing it.

[BulletProof1]

Since no one gave me any suggestions on this problem, I decided to keep playing with my Firefox history.

I went to Firefox browser Tools > Options and saw that I had "Remember History" selected. This is what I want...I only wish to erase history when I want to. About every few days I remove history.

I next went to "Clear Recent History" and noticed that was where my problem originated. There are a number of choices to select from: Last Hour, Last Two Hours, Last Four Hours, Today, and Everything.

I had all the boxes checked for what parts of history I wanted erased. They are: Browsing & Download History, Form & Search History, Cookies, Cache, Active Logins, and Site Preferences.

Normally I erase Everything when I erase history. But, I had selected Last Hour sometime in January and never changed the selection.

Thus, every time I erased History after that day...I was only erasing "Last Hour" of my history. The rest was being saved. Which is why I can go into the history folders and see information for January.

I have taken the time to write up this report on using the Firefox browser, so that others can benefit from it. There are many people deciding to use Firefox everyday...hopefully this will help someone else.

[valis]

okay. So can we mark it solved?