Can I save my browsing history forever using Firefox sync? Will it be there even after 3 years?
I want to keep browsing history of 2 Firefox accounts separately saved forever even after 3 years. How do I do this? I went through some FAQs and it is said not to rely on Firefox sync and use some data backup, how do I do that? For how long does my browsing history remain in Firefox account?
I want to do 2 separate researches on internet using 2 separate Firefox accounts which could last over an year. So I want to keep my browsing history intact to avoid visiting same pages again and again. The good thing about Firefox Sync is that it shows previously visited pages on Google search page itself in different color (unlike Google Chrome) so I can easily avoid visiting those. Any other suggestions are also welcome.
All Replies (4)
Firefox does not save all history indefinitely. I only have about a year, and I have no idea what has been discarded.
You may need to come up with a system for exporting history into another format to save it. I think both of these can export Firefox history:
- Extension that runs in a tab: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/norwell/
- Separate Windows program: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/mozilla_history_view.html
But that won't be especially convenient for knowing what you viewed before. It's an interesting and difficult problem. Hopefully it won't distract you too much from your work.
@jscher2000 I want the previously visited pages to show in a different color so I can avoid visiting them again. Firefox sync works fine for this. I don't want a separate history somewhere else if I can't merge that with Firefox history and see previously visited pages in different color on search page itself.
Will Norwell addon do this? Or does it just provide a history list?
I somewhere read about Firefox storing everything in a folder on the computer, if I keep saving the history related files from there, can they serve my purpose if Firefox sync deletes my history at some point?
I understand what you want but I am doubtful about it and want to help you develop a "Plan B".
See:
- Bug 985930 - History older than 6 months is not synced
Please do not comment in bug reports
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html
Current Firefox versions keep a maximum number of visited page and do not have a time limit for the history. 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. You can create a new integer pref named places.history.expiration.max_pages if you want to adjust the automatically calculates number of pages to keep. Be cautious though with modifying the value of this pref. Note that you can do a copy and paste of history items to a bookmarks folder.
See Marco Bonardo's blog about this subject: