Why does Firefox delete history without warning? (accidential “delete” keypress and full disk)
When running out of space storage (happened to me in 2014 last time, therefore not an issue today), or accidentially pressing the “Delete” key when an item is selected (not just browsing history, also download history, etc.), Firefox IMMEDIAELY deletes the selected history without any confirmation warning. I usually have always considered Google Chrome as heavily overrated and overhyped, but in this regard (warning before deleting items from history), Chrome is better. (At least, Firefox keeps the history indefinetly instead of deleting after 2 Months like Google Chrome, that however killed the ”ArchivedHistory“ file with Version 37 due to a Google Employee called Peter Kasting. I also miss the “Norwell History Tools” add-on that got wiped off with Quantum's entire WebExtension replacement.)
But why does Firefox not warn the user before deleting? (Are we in 1990? Who designed this? Deletions without warning? Is that the 21th century?)
I know, it is not THAT likely to happen, but it just happened to me for the first time: I wanted to press the “end” key right next to the “del” key on my keyboard. Instead, my finger landed on the “del” key and I wiped an entire month of history in one second. Just like a bicycle crash is unlikely to happen, yet we wear helmets! A car crash is unlikely to happen, yet we wear seat belts! And please, “minimalism” and “simplicity” are just toxic arguments to sacrifice usability and functionality for the sake of following a modern, toxic design trend that Apple introduced to the world.
ყველა პასუხი (2)
If the history is cleared then download history that is part of this history time frame is cleared as well. Downloads are treated as history items, so clearing history removes corresponding download items and vice versa. You would need an older backup copy of places.sqlite to recover lost history. On Linux you would have to create this backup yourself. If you have used a refresh recently then check the Desktop folder for an "Old Firefox Data" folder.
If you would get a confirmation dialog for every history delete then most would find this annoying (clearing a large amount of history works best/fastest when done in smaller chunks) although if you would remove all history or a large time frame (e.g. more than one month) then this could be helpful.
cor-el said
If you would get a confirmation dialog for every history delete then most would find this annoying (clearing a large amount of history works best/fastest when done in smaller chunks) although if you would remove all history or a large time frame (e.g. more than one month) then this could be helpful.
Deletion can happen at anytime.
Undeletion can't.
Therefore, preservation > deletion.
When deleting files, one does also mass-select. And how many people actually manually delete their history on a daily basis?
I consider it better if they ask for pre-deletion confirmations.