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Why does my back button history only contain the last three sites I visited? It used to have a list all the way back to my home page.

  • 7 replies
  • 3 have this problem
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  • Last reply by gcacoach

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Under previous versions of Firefox I was able to see lots of sites in the back button history, sometimes all the way back to my home page. Now I can only see the last three sites and the oldest drops off the list when I visit more sites.

My entire history does show up in All History so I don't think it is a database issue. I installed the backforedrop add-on but it had no effect. The add-on shows the same thing as right clicking the back button.

Under previous versions of Firefox I was able to see lots of sites in the back button history, sometimes all the way back to my home page. Now I can only see the last three sites and the oldest drops off the list when I visit more sites. My entire history does show up in All History so I don't think it is a database issue. I installed the backforedrop add-on but it had no effect. The add-on shows the same thing as right clicking the back button.

Chosen solution

Do you have (or had) an extension that has changed the default value of that pref from 50 to 3 ?


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All Replies (7)

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Update Java via http://www.java.com/en/

Modified by Xircal

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No, it didn't help. I even cleared the Java cache and restarted the browser. I can still only see the last three sites visited. Now that Java has been updated I will reinstall Firefox 4.0.1 and see if that makes a difference.

Modified by gcacoach

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Reinstallation did not help. However, I did find a setting in the about:config section that allowed me to fix the problem.

Change browser.sessionhistory.max_entries to the integer value you want the back button history to be.

Problem resolved!

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Chosen Solution

Do you have (or had) an extension that has changed the default value of that pref from 50 to 3 ?


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I don't think so. I had the same issue in safe-mode so I don't think an add-on or extension changed anything, and it was not an issue with the previous version of Firefox. The issue only appeared after I upgraded to 4.0.1. The only thing I have changed is my version of Java and that was after the upgrade. I really don't know what happened or why the value was changed. Sorry!

Modified by gcacoach

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I noticed you have Freeze (dot) com Net Assistant installed. This is considered by most security software to be malware since it changes your user preferences and feeds you ads. See http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/www.freeze.com

Also, this Wikipedia article contains some info about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W3i#History

You should be able to remove it by going to Add-ons, then Extensions. If it's not there, then the free edition of Malwarebytes from http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free should be able to get rid of it for you.


There are some screenshots of how you probably got it on your system here: http://www.emsisoft.com/en/malware/?Adware.Win32.Freeze.com+Toolbar (no need to purchase the software to remove it because as mentioned already, Malwarebytes should be able to get rid of it for you).

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Yes, but I had it disabled. I manually removed it from my system and then ran Malwarebytes, which didn't find anything. Thanks for the heads-up!