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Please give users option to customize size/length of history

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Since several months the amount of pages Firefox keeps in its history is drastically reduced. For whatever reason someone made the decision that FF was to be smarter than the user and to decide in his place how much history should be saved - for reason of performance - without giving the user any option to modify this and even without notifying the user about this critical change. There have been several threads about this issue, i.e. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1148703.

Imho this was a very unsmart and unreflected move - this is a critical functionality, FF is going to lose a serious amount of users if this stays that way. Please give the user the option to choose between "pages to be saved" and "days to be remembered" for history operation mode, with possibility to adjust the values. And what exactly is the rationale for making the value "places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages" readonly? The users who edit about:config are supposed to know what they're doing, so why not just let them?

To add insult to injury, there is now an addon for firefox to reenable this functionality that had been disabled by this change. Are you kidding me? You're slashing the size of the history for performance reasons, and then you're telling the users to install an addon if they want to have their usual history size, an addon which will have another impact on the performance of the browser?

Seriously - please revert this bad change, or fix it. Thanks.

Since several months the amount of pages Firefox keeps in its history is drastically reduced. For whatever reason someone made the decision that FF was to be smarter than the user and to decide in his place how much history should be saved - for reason of performance - without giving the user any option to modify this and even without notifying the user about this critical change. There have been several threads about this issue, i.e. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1148703. Imho this was a very unsmart and unreflected move - this is a critical functionality, FF is going to lose a serious amount of users if this stays that way. Please give the user the option to choose between "pages to be saved" and "days to be remembered" for history operation mode, with possibility to adjust the values. And what exactly is the rationale for making the value "places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages" readonly? The users who edit about:config are supposed to know what they're doing, so why not just let them? To add insult to injury, there is now an addon for firefox to reenable this functionality that had been disabled by this change. Are you kidding me? You're slashing the size of the history for performance reasons, and then you're telling the users to install an addon if they want to have their usual history size, an addon which will have another impact on the performance of the browser? Seriously - please revert this bad change, or fix it. Thanks.

Saafara biñ tànn

You can provide feedback to Mozilla here: https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback

Jàng tontu lii ci fi mu bokk 👍 1

All Replies (8)

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Separate Issue; Your System Details shows;

Installed Plug-ins

Shockwave Flash 20.0 r0 Shockwave Flash 11.2 r202 Shockwave Flash 10.1 r999
Having more than one version of a program may cause issues. You must remove the older programs. Then get the current full installer.

Flash: Grab the uninstaller from here: Uninstall Flash Player | Windows Uninstall Flash Player | Mac

Then reinstall the latest version.

Note: Windows users should download the active_x for Internet Explorer. and the plugin for Plugin-based browsers (like Firefox).

Note: Windows 8 and Windows 10 have built-in flash players and Adobe will cause a conflict. Install the plugin only. Not the active_x.

Flash Player Version: 24.0.0.194

https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ Direct link scans current system and browser Note: Other software is offered in the download. <Windows Only>

https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/ Step 1: Select Operating System Step 2: Select A Version (Firefox, Win IE . . . .) Note: Other software is offered in the download. <Windows Only>


See if there are updates for your graphics drivers https://support.mozilla.org/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration

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Firefox determines automatically how many pages can be kept without affecting the performance. You can see the current value of this maximum as the value of the read-only pref places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages on the about:config page.

Create a new integer pref named places.history.expiration.max_pages if you want to adjust the automatically calculates number of pages to keep.


Type about:config in the location (address) bar and press the Enter key to open the about:config page like you open a website by typing the URL in the location bar.

  • use the Search bar at the top of the about:config page to locate preferences more easily
  • preferences that have been modified and do not have the default value show as bold (user set)
  • preferences that are user set (bold) can be reset to the default value via the right-click context menu
  • preferences can be modified via Modify (String or Integer) or Toggle (Boolean) in the right-click context menu and by double-clicking the line with the pref
  • preferences can be created via the right-click context menu: New -> String, Integer, Boolean
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FredMcD said

Separate Issue; Your System Details shows; Installed Plug-ins ...

Thanks.

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cor-el said

Firefox determines automatically how many pages can be kept without affecting the performance. You can see the current value of this maximum as the value of the read-only pref places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages on the about:config page. Create a new integer pref named places.history.expiration.max_pages if you want to adjust the automatically calculates number of pages to keep.

...

Ya, I did this of course. But would like to point out that the majority of FF users that like to have more history won't dig that far - they'll be like "wth? browser does not save more history?", search the preferences and upon not finding anything, rather switch to another browser than to plough through support threads. So, would be nice if you mods could forward my feedback to the devs or tell me where I can post this so that it is taken into account.

Thanks a bunch.

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This pref is usually over 100,000 and most won't need a higher setting.

Note that Firefox only keeps downloads for 60 days in Firefox 49+ releases.

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Saafara yiñ Tànn

You can provide feedback to Mozilla here: https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback

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cor-el said

This pref is usually over 100,000 and most won't need a higher setting. Note that Firefox only keeps downloads for 60 days in Firefox 49+ releases.

Mine was cut down to around 6300, meaning around 5-6 days of history.

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the-edmeister said

You can provide feedback to Mozilla here: https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback

Thanks a bunch, my friend.