Want to clear any stored information about one web site in particular, without clearing out all of your browser’s history files?  Hidden deep within the Firefox browser, there is a way to clear Firefox’s history for just one single web site.  You just have to know where to look.

From the Firefox menu bar, click on History and then Show All History. This should pull up the Library window.  Now, in the Library’s search box (located in the top-right corner) type in the name of the web site you want to forget. 

Scroll through your results, till you find the web site you wish to forget and select it.  Now, right-click on the entry and click, “Forget About This Site”.  All history items (browsing and download history, cookies, cache, active logins, passwords, saved form data, exceptions for cookies, images, pop-ups) will be removed only for that site. So be careful with using this choice and only use it if you really want Firefox to forget everything.

Now your browser history is cleared of that one annoying web site.

The History Submenus extension for Firefox is here to make thumbing through the browser’s history easier.

The browsing history in Firefox is one of the most taken for granted features, that can sometimes produce amazing results.  Say you check out a web page today, never think about it again – and then tomorrow you say, “what did that article say again?”.  Just browse through your Firefox history, and you can find the answer. 

What the History Submenus add-on does different, is it places each day’s entire browsing history in a submenu of the history’s menu from the menu bar in Firefox.   Simply put, it makes the History menu much more usable. 

You can pick up the History Submenus add-on on the Firefox Add-on’s web site.

File this add-on under awesome.  The Places’ Tooltip add-on for Firefox adds more detailed information about the bookmarks and links you have saved to your browser. 

It shows you more than your standard name and address, as Firefox does by default.  Once installed, you can see:

the last visited date, the tags associated with the link, the description and the keywords

It shows the tooltip for and in:

all links, folders, bookmarks, RSS items in the bookmarks toolbar, bookmarks menu, history menu and sidebars

This is a great simple extension for those who just need to have a little more information handy about the links they have saved to the browser.  You can pick up the Places’ Tooltip add-on on the Firefox Add-ons web site.

What does does this extension for Firefox allow you to do?  Well, if you can navigate forward if you right-click with your mouse on the Firefox border too. If you are using tabbed browsing, middle-click on the left border to close the current tab, or rotate the mouse-wheel to cycle through your current tabs.

To learn more about how to tweak this add-on, check out this tutorial:

• MileWideBack Customization – mozdev.org

So if you are looking for way to make your browsing experience more user friendly or unique, MileWideBack is well worth your time.  Give it a shot, and let me know if you find browsing this way is better or worse than your more traditional methods.

I’ll share with you though how I have my browser setup to clear some un-important data each time I close the browser.

Mitch’s Clear History When Firefox Closes Settings

Go to Tools, and then click on Options.

Next, go to the Privacy tab and select “Use custom settings for history” from the drop down menu.

Put a check mark in the box for, “Clear history when Firefox closes” and then click on the button labeled, Settings.

Make sure you add a check mark for only the following boxes:

• Browsing History
• Download History
• Forms & Search History
• Cache

Then hit the button labeled, “OK” to continue.  On the Options window, also click the button labeled, “OK” and you are all set.

This way I have Firefox setup to clear everything except for my saved passwords and login sessions that are enabled by cookies.  Your setup might be different, and if it is – feel free to share in the comments. 

Tree diagrams are awesome.

Firefox is even more awesome.

What happens when you mix together this much awesomeness?

You get the History Tree add-on for Firefox.  What does it do to your browser? You can use it to find any page you have visited quickly and easily. It also shows your browsing history as a tree of tabs, with thumbnail screenshots of the web pages in every tab you have opened.

Usage Note: This is an experimental add-on, only for Windows at this time.  So you will need to login to the Firefox Add-ons site to grab it or click the check mark box next to Let me install this experimental add-on.

This is a great Firefox add-on if you spend a lot of time navigating through the pages you just visited.  Pickup the History Tree add-on for Firefox and check out a different view of the pages you have visited.

By introducing this feature into the browser, for those minimal theme users, you can ditch the backward and forward browsing buttons in your navigation toolbar arrangement.  Via the options, you can set it to display the current page title in history menu if the current tab hasn’t had history yet, and also disable the history popup when the the Shift, Ctrl, or Alt keys are being pressed.

With the Tab History Menu extension installed, you can cut down on your browser’s navigation clutter or get one more way to browse your history.  It is a great addition to Firefox, no matter what way you use it.

Due to some unknown reason, Firefox on Windows pulls certain file locations for security reasons.  In turn, having too many temporary, history or recent document files will slow down Firefox 3.5’s data generation process.  A bug has been filed about this, but in the mean time – the best thing you can do to help fix it is to do a little house cleaning.

The fix here is to browse through and clear both Internet Explorer’s history and cache and Firefox’s history and cache as much as you can.  You can find more help with this process at these resources:

• Workaround for Firefox 3.5 slow startups on Window
• Speed Up Firefox 3.5 Start-Up on Windows

I had not noticed this problem too much – then again, I have my Firefox temp files set to clear every time I close the browser and I hardly ever use Internet Explorer.  How about you?

UPDATE:

This problem was fixed in Firefox 3.5.1.  To check for updates, be sure to go to Help > “Check for Updates…” in Firefox.  Thanks to the Firefox development team for the speedy update!

Not only does this add-on give you a fancy new button, it also gives you a new keyboard shortcut to access the most recently closed tab (CTRL+SHIFT+Z). 

After installing the extension, to add it to your own browser interface you must add the button by going to View > Toolbars > Customize, then drag and drop the button anywhere on the toolbar.

The Closed Tab Button add-on for Firefox might be a little on the simple side, however when there is just a little problem to be fixed – nice to see an extension that gets the job done right without too much bloat.

Here are some of the important files you might seen in your profile folder and what they are used for.

• search.sqlite and the searchplugins folder – The first file, search.sqlite stores the order that your search engines (for the search box) are sorted. Inside of the searchplugins folder you can find all the extra search engines you have installed.
• mimeTypes.rdf – your preferences with respect to what Firefox does when it comes across known file types.
• formhistory.sqlite - this is where information that you have searched for or entered into forms on web sites (think autocomplete) is stored.
• places.sqlite – this is the file that contains your bookmarks and previously visited web sites.
• cert8.db – all your security certificate settings and any SSL certificates you have imported are stored here.
• permissions.sqlite – the file here stores site specific preferences, such as if you allow it to install add-ons, show images, display popups or any special orders you have allowed for that domain.
• key3.db and signons3.txt – these are the files that store your password information you have saved.
• persdict.dat – this file will hold your words you have personally put into Firefox’s built in spellchecker.
• cookies.sqlite – your web site cookies are stored here.

Now, I do know there are more files – however, these are the files that are most important for you to know about, just in case something bad might happen.  Hopefully, this additional documentation will come in handy when troubleshooting your own Firefox issues or problems.