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Under 'Tools' my 'Private Browsing and 'Clear Recent History' are greyed out: how can I turn these options on?

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  • 108 have this problem
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  • Last reply by egreen

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On my Firefox menu the options Private Browsing and Clear Recent History are greyed out, so I am unable to turn them on or off. How do get these options? I cannot find abything in settings, etc. Thanks.

On my Firefox menu the options Private Browsing and Clear Recent History are greyed out, so I am unable to turn them on or off. How do get these options? I cannot find abything in settings, etc. Thanks.

All Replies (3)

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You probably have Private Browsing turned on all the time in Options.

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Private+Browsing

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Your above posted system details show outdated plugin(s) with known security and stability risks.

  • Adobe PDF Plug-In For Firefox and Netscape 8.2.4
  • Java Plug-in 1.6.0_02 for Netscape Navigator (DLL Helper)

Update the Java plugin to the latest version.

Update the Adobe Reader plugin to the latest version.


If you see a grayed "Stop Private Browsing" in the Tools menu then you are in private browsing mode as posted above.

  • You enter Private Browsing mode if you select: Tools > Options > Privacy > History: Firefox will: "Never Remember History"
  • To see all History settings, choose: Tools > Options > Privacy, choose the setting Firefox will: Use custom settings for history
  • Uncheck: [ ] "Automatically start Firefox in a private browsing session"
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Thanks kindly guys, problem solved.