Firefox's history in "places.sqlite" file not cleaned

[Bellinham]

The file "places.sqlite" stores the annotations, bookmarks, favorite icons, input history, keywords, and browsing history (a record of visited pages).

I thought browser makers learned from Internet Explorer's "index.dat" file not to keep histories in a central file and in Firefox's case, one that can't be deleted without replication. Firefox hasn't. That is what I expect CCleaner to protect me from and it hasn't.

Could you please develop a a solution to cleaning Firefox's "places.sqlite" file. It just replicates itself with the history in it if you delete it.

The only solution I could come up with was to uninstall Firefox and then reinstall it and then go through the options screens and tell it not to save anything. I now keep my bookmark's in a third party program and it keeps no histories.

Places.sqlite - in Firefox stores the annotations, bookmarks, favorite icons, input history, keywords, and browsing history (a record of visited pages).html

[Andavari]

I always have my browsers clean themselves on exiting, then secondary to that any left-overs can more thoroughly be removed by CCleaner.

[Bellinham]

I've always had my browsers clean themselves on closing and then also used CCleaner. If Firefox worked that way; that is what I'm accustomed to and I wouldn't have bothered asking for a solution from CCleaner. Firefox doesn't anymore and apparently has not for a long time. Your history remains in "places.sqlite".

You cannot clean "places.sqlite" on exit and if you delete it it will just be regenerated with all the history you want to get rid off. It also contains your bookmarks that you don't want to get rid of.

The attachment is from Mozilla and says " Places.sqlite is used in Firefox 3 and above, instead of the older bookmarks.html and history.dat files" and that the file "places.sqlite" stores the annotations, bookmarks, favorite icons, input history, keywords, and browsing history (a record of visited pages). Seeing that we are on Firefox 63 I'd say CCleaner has had plenty of time to identify and deal with this issue.

There is a difference between telling Firefox not to display info in the Awesome Bar aka the address bar, which you can do, and getting it off your disk which means getting it out of "places.sqlite" which you can't do.

The contents of "places.sqlite" can be examined in several ways described in the attached article yielding the annotations, bookmarks, favorite icons, input history, keywords, and browsing history (a record of visited pages).

CCleaner says it cleans the internet history and the download history among other things (see attached image) which it cannot do unless it cleans "places.sqlite" which it can't do because Firefox won't let it.

"places.sqlite" is a 5MB file created during installation by Firefox. "places.sqlite" regenerates itself as a 5MB file containing all your histories by default if you delete it.

I'd just like to use CCleaner with the confidence that it is doing what it says. In this instance it is not. I'd really like CCleaner to solve this.

Places.sqlite - in Firefox stores the annotations, bookmarks, favorite icons, input history, keywords, and browsing history (a record of visited pages).html

[Noesis]

Another thing to check is if you have firefox sync enabled. Simply mentioning it as you haven't said you've disabled it within firefox and I believe it's enabled by default.

This would also explain why the entries keep returning (i.e it gets recreated from the synced backup), rather than a new default and empty places.sqlite just being recreated (i.e. no sync occurring).

Also contrary to what you said above, there is a setting to clean history on exit in firefox. Go to Options -> "Privacy & Security" section -> scroll down to the area labeled History, uncheck the "Remember browsing and download history" checkbox and enable the "Clear history when Firefox closes" check box. To the right of the "Clear history when Firefox closes" line is a button labeled "Settings...", click it and it opens a popup window allowing you to choose what data gets deleted on exit. Select the "Browsing & History data" option (and any of the others you want cleared each exit).

FYI: the sync options are contained in the Options -> "Firefox Account" section.