Delete History Firefox v77.0.1

[greybeard2012]

This isn't a recent problem its one that I've been having with FF ever since I decided to use the most up to date version on one particular PC. Currently v77.0.1.

Despite unticking the Active Logins in the Delete History options it still deletes any forum logins, like this one, when I use it. If I disable any other Delete History settings its doesn't delete the browsing history properly and even offers me the option of restoring the previous session.

That is just stupidly contradictory.

Even if, with the logins on the forums concerned, I tick the box to Remember Me it seems I'm logged out on reboot of FF if I've used any Delete History option. Yet at the same time my browsing history can be retained.

I thought initially it was a CCleaner issue as I use that at the end of each day/session. That has the option to save the cookies for any website you're logged in on and will keep them until they expire. Problem is that FF now seems to stymie this feature of CCleaner completely.

I've tested it and this is entirely a FF matter. It seems you can only delete all your history properly if it includes all your logins cookies too. I just can not find any setting combination in Options that does what pre-v57 FF did so easily: keep my forum login cookies whilst deleting everything else.

As I said in another post here I've tried using customised location cleaning by editing the ccleaner.ini and it works for removing user Profile session checkpoints and session store in AppData > Roaming but somehow, somewhere else FF stores previous session data and back it comes. It is getting damned annoying because if I've told FF itself to delete my session history it shouldn't be able to do that.

Its almost as though FF is trying to force you to use its 'Lockwise' facility now to store your active logins when in pre-v57 FF you didn't need to do that. Active login cookies were kept because it was an option in the settings menu. That option has gone and now there is only 'Lockwise' which is not the same thing. Its not really a cookie manager its a password manager ie. it saves your password and login name too.

I do not like that.

Is there any solution to fixing this without using Lockwise or other password manager?

[jscher2000]

"Active Logins" isn't as broad as it sounds, it only refers to HTTP Authentication prompts. All your form-based logins are maintained by cookies.

What is your cookie strategy now? I suggest this combination of settings:

Options page > Privacy & Security > Cookies and Site Data section

Check the box for "Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed"

That forces the cookie lifetime on all newly set cookies to "Session". (Before Firefox 56, this control for cookie lifetime arguably had clearer labeling: "Keep until: they expire" vs. "Keep until: Firefox closes")

If a site should be allowed to set persistent cookies, add an exception using either the Page Info dialog (while on that site: Ctrl+i, Permissions, "Set Cookies", uncheck "Use default" and click "Allow") or the Manage Permissions dialog (use principal syntax of protocol + domain, e.g., http://forums.mozilla.org ).

Note: this lifetime permission also gates some storage features, so Outlook mail sites, for example, do not work correctly without an Allow exception.

Options page > Privacy & Security > History section

With "Firefox will: Use custom settings for history":

If you use "Clear history when Firefox closes" click the settings button and make sure to UNCHECK cookies here. This function ignores all the exceptions you created in the other section of the page and flushes all cookies, so it's not what you need. **EDIT** As noted below, make sure to also UNCHECK Site Preferences to avoid deleting the permissions you set earlier.

This approach has been working for me for many years since I gave up using that annoying prompt asking me to approve/disapprove every darned cookie.

[dickvl]

If you use "Clear history when Firefox closes" click the settings button and make sure to UNCHECK cookies here. This function ignores all the exceptions you created in the other section of the page and flushes all cookies, so it's not what you need.

Note that you need to exclude the Site Preferences as well because clearing the SP removes all exceptions.

[jscher2000]

If you use "Clear history when Firefox closes" click the settings button and make sure to UNCHECK cookies here. This function ignores all the exceptions you created in the other section of the page and flushes all cookies, so it's not what you need.

Note that you need to exclude the Site Preferences as well because clearing the SP removes all exceptions.

Excellent point!

[greybeard2012]

Thanks for the replies.

I'll try these suggestions and keep my fingers crossed that it works.

[greybeard2012]

It did not.

I thought it might be CCleaner causing the problem so I tested without using it at all. If I use the settings recommended above I lose all my forum sign in cookies including this one. That's what I want to stop happening.

The only thing I did not do is add exceptions to the cookies settings and that I suspect is the key issue not the other settings I am using. But what it means is that Firefox now requires you to add these exceptions manually, a real pain when you have 20 - 30 forums and other places you want keep signed into but still be able to delete the rest of your history.

Old Firefox ie. pre-v57 had a simple: keep cookies for their life option so even if you had all the delete history boxes ticked including cookies, in concert with CCleaner, the forum cookies etc were all kept but everything else in your history went.

For whatever reason FF has changed something and its been a retrograde step. You now appear to have to delete everything including all cookies to clear the history properly but that deletes the wanted cookies too. If you've checked web sites' own 'Keep Me Signed In' FF should be doing that keeping them for their lifetime. A FF option IS still provided to do this except you now appear to have to do it manually by adding them as exceptions.

It is a poor system for doing that too, no list of cookies you might want to keep you simple select and add from that list (like CCleaner) but a requirement to put in the full address of each site. That I'm immediately suspicious of because it doesn't just specify the login cookie it appears to be a general exclusion setting for that site's cookies.

That I definitely do not want.

[jscher2000]

Old Firefox ie. pre-v57 had a simple: keep cookies for their life option so even if you had all the delete history boxes ticked including cookies, in concert with CCleaner, the forum cookies etc were all kept but everything else in your history went.

Um, no, this is not a recent change. Here's a reply I posted in 2014 (for Firefox 29) about this exact issue with including cookies in your Clear history at shutdown selections: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1031085

A FF option IS still provided to do this except you now appear to have to do it manually by adding them as exceptions.

It is a poor system for doing that too, no list of cookies you might want to keep you simple select and add from that list (like CCleaner) but a requirement to put in the full address of each site. That I'm immediately suspicious of because it doesn't just specify the login cookie it appears to be a general exclusion setting for that site's cookies.

Firefox's cookie permissions are based on principal (protocol://hostname) and not at the individual cookie level. You can add an exception for a principal without having to type or paste anything as follows:

* Go to site
* Open Page Info (Ctrl+i)
* Click the Permissions icon at the top
* Scroll down to Set Cookies
* Uncheck "Use default"
* Click "Accept"
* Close the dialog

[greybeard2012]

Well there's something different going on with FF on the PC I'm using now with an older FF version v.54: in the toolbar Clear History dialogue box I have all 8 boxes ticked.

In the FF main Options menu there are a number of menu items under Privacy > History; these are my settings:-

1). Use custom settings history (yes).
2). Always use private browsing mode (no).
3). Remember by browsing and download history (yes).
4). Remember search and form history (no).
5a). Accept cookies from sites (yes).
5b). Accept third party cookies: Always (yes).
5c). Keep until they expire (yes).
6). Clear history when Firefox closes (no).

There are no added cookie exceptions.

With these settings I can use FF Clear History option (typically using the last four hours one) and it does that but all my wanted logins remain. The same applies to CCleaner which has its own FF cookie white-list. I've tested it with and without CCleaner and its confirmed that the result is the same. CCleaner finds some additional temporary Profile and cache files that FF Delete History doesn't remove but that's it, the logins remain.

If I use the same, or what I assume are equivalent, History settings with FF v78 if I clear all the history all my logins go too. If I leave the toolbar and/or FF menu Options for cleaning cookies unchecked when I relaunch FF my previous session is offered and all the sites I'd visited in the previous session are still listed under History in the toolbar.

Using CCleaner to try to clean FF history without deleting the logins is fruitless too - it still finds the temporary stuff FF still leaves behind but no setting or .INI inclusion seems to change FF behaviour now. It 'cleans' the sessioncheckpoints.json and other related .json but FF seems to be able to restore that info from somewhere rendering the cleaning ineffectual.

FF now just seems to be making the removal of browsing history an all or nothing option. You should not have to add exclusions manually if when you've sign into a forum you've ticked the box to remain logged in on that PC. You should be able to remove all history and all other cookies in particular but leave those untouched until they expire.

[jscher2000]

Hmm, I thought the "Clear Recent History" (on demand) feature worked the same as "Clear history when Firefox closes" feature but since you are not choosing the "Everything" time range, there certainly could be some difference related to how the four-hour cutoff is calculated.

Or can you tell whether Firefox 54 is sparing open sites and only clearing cookies for closed sites?

[greybeard2012]

Interesting: I opened all 17 of the forums I'm currently logged into, including this one. Then I used the toolbar History > Clear Recent History > Last Four Hours, as described above but with all tabs still open. Shutdown FF and restarted.

Under the toolbar History button all the tabs from the previous session are gone BUT I am offered Session Restore and it does work despite my settings. I think that must mean the sessioncheckpoints.json is not being cleaned by FF. I'm going to do that again and restart the PC not just FF to see what happens when I launch FF after that.

I'll edit this post later with the result.

EDIT

Yes, Session Restore is still being offered and works. All persistent forum logins remain whether I use that or open a new tab. I've checked that twice just to be sure.

What this must mean is that the sessioncheckpoints.json is the fly in the ointment. FF isn't cleaning it with the settings I'm using but I'm very disciplined when closing FF and 9 times out of 10 I close all my tabs first and return to my homepage.

I think this is where CCleaner comes in - when I haven't done that one of the files it does clean is that sessioncheckpoints.json so even if I've forgotten to close all FF tabs it takes care of that too.

But it is clear that even FF v54 is not actually clearing all history itself using those settings either. But under all circumstances it does retain the forum logins. In concert with CCleaner cleaning the sessioncheckpoints it works as wanted.

Under the same settings FF v78 and all recent FF versions I've used it is not doing that. It IS actually cleaning the history better by deleting all cookies but this is now including the forum and other logins even if I have marked on the forums' login screens as wanting to retain.

[greybeard2012]

At this point on this PC I'm giving up. No combination of settings is working to do what I'd like: keep my forum logins but clear my history properly.

FF now seems to be ignoring the "Firefox keeps data from websites with persistent storage until you delete it, and deletes data from websites with non-persistent storage as space is needed."

Its just not recognising persistent storage cookies and deletes them all or keeps them all depending on what settings are used for delete history.

CCleaner has been rendered ineffective for cleaning FF as its white list is also being ignored.

At this point I've, very reluctantly, used the FF Lockwise facility. It is inherently less safe having username and password details stored than what I've been doing until now on other PCs. All you need is a simple click next to the password to display it. Stupid.

[mightyglydd]

I think this is where CCleaner comes in -

[greybeard2012]

Meaning?

There are certain people on Mozilla forums who have a hang up about CCleaner I know that but I thought I'd made it clear this new (post v56) FF behaviour is independent of CCleaner.

I have specifically tested it without ever using CCleaner - it is not involved. Although I would not be at all surprised if FF has now been made specifically CCleaner incompatible. The fact is FF pre-v57 and CCleaner worked together and did a proper job deleting history but keeping persistent forum login cookies.

[malliz]

Lets get one thing straight right now Ccleaner has always caused problems in Firefox no if buts or maybes so cut the rubbish.

[jscher2000]

At this point I've, very reluctantly, used the FF Lockwise facility. It is inherently less safe having username and password details stored than what I've been doing until now on other PCs. All you need is a simple click next to the password to display it. Stupid.

You might not have created a Master Password yet. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/use-mast ... red-logins