Storage Folder Topic is solved

[Marcus]

Hi.

Within Palemoon profile there's a folder called "storage". Inside that there's a "default" folder where some sites create info when I visit them.
Could someone explain what this is?

Screenshot_2017-05-23_10-33-11.png

P.S. I have offline web content disabled in preferences.

[coffeebreak]

@Marcus, Just to get this started... (My understanding is very limited, hope others will add to this)

I believe this folder holds indexedDB storage, like what used to be in the "indexedDB" folder in PM 25.* and 26.*
Don't know if it holds any other type as well.

There is a global on/off switch in about:config, dom.indexedDB.enabled, but IMO no effective per/site user control.

In Options -> Advanced -> Network tab -> Offline Web Content and User Data -> When a website asks to store data for offline use:
There is a 3-state preference, Allow by default|Always ask|Deny.
(It changes a couple of about:config preferences, offline-apps.allow_by_default and offline-apps.permissions)

But this option doesn't act on all local storage. Not sure what all it does act on, but I think only storage that the depositing website deems "Permanent" (which would show in a folder called "Permanent" within "Storage").
Stuff that appears in the "Default" or "Temporary" folders inside "Storage" is not affected by this preference AFAICS.

There's an MDN article: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/IndexedDB_API/Browser_storage_limits_and_eviction_criteria

And a couple of threads with discussion and links you might want to check out:
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14023
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13670

[GerryB]

I've always found that puzzling, too. In the past some references appeared in the Storage folder to commercial sites I had visited, Walmart, for example. This happened regardless of how I set the local storage option mentioned above. I deleted the items manually, and once I set dom.storage.enabled in about:config to False, the storage folder remained empty. I then deleted the folder. Later, however, I set the preference back to True, and the folder has never reappeared since then.

[Marcus]

cleaning cache and offline data on exit, denying offline content, changing dom.storage.enabled to false and/or deleting the folders ... nothing made a difference ... this is annoying

[GerryB]

It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps the Storage folder no longer appeared in my profile because I had disabled disk caching. However, I just re-enabled disk caching for a couple of sessions and visited some commercial sites, but nothing has changed; still no Storage folder (not that I wanted it).

In the past I used to remove that folder as part of a batch file I created for dealing with software that doesn't clean up after itself on exit:

rd <profile folder>\Storage /s /q

The Windows disk cleanup feature is inadequate, to say the least, and 3rd-party cleanup apps aren't flexible enough to do what I want, but my batch file gets everything that they miss.

The various explanations online about local storage are clear as mud to me. At any rate, of all browsers that I've used, Pale Moon leaves the least unwanted data behind. Recent Firefox versions are horrible by comparison, and a message in Chrome's cleanup dialog even admits that some data based on browsing habits will not be removed.

[lightning slinger]

cleaning cache and offline data on exit, denying offline content, changing dom.storage.enabled to false and/or deleting the folders ... nothing made a difference ... this is annoying

You could of course change the permissions of the storage folder to read-only!

[New Tobin Paradigm]

DOM Storage and anything else using that mechanism is becoming increasingly more important on the web. You should leave it alone. Bad advice should always have an 'at your own risk' warning attached.

[GerryB]

DOM Storage and anything else using that mechanism is becoming increasingly more important on the web.

True, some websites don't work properly unless DOM storage is enabled. In my own experience, at least one streaming webcam doesn't work, and searching for products on some commercial sites is disabled, as well. That's why I eventually re-enabled DOM storage. Apparently it's working, but still not leaving traces in the Storage folder, which remains non-existent. The data must be stored somewhere else in my profile.

[Moonchild]

You have full control over this kind of data per website. This is exactly why page info->permissions an the permissions manager (in the menu) exists.

As Tobin says though: an increasing amount of sites rely of being able to store "web application data" in your browser, so blocking any of that is (similar to blocking cookies) entirely at your own risk, and we cannot provide support if websites break as a result.
This is also exactly the reason why Options -> Advanced -> network by default allows storage of data without asking (up to a certain limit).

[Marcus]

The whole thing is clearer now, some storage allowed by default for compatibility sake with per site tweaks as override.
Thanks to all for the answers.

[coffeebreak]

You have full control over this kind of data per website. This is exactly why page info->permissions an the permissions manager (in the menu) exists.

I don't see this working.
Used yahoo.com to test, because yahoo always stores stuff in storage\default after one or two page refreshes.

First, and please correct this if it's wrong, the basic on/off switch for storing in that "storage" folder is dom.indexedDB.enabled.
(In the Permissions Manager, when toggling "Maintain Offline Storage" for 'All Sites' , that is the pref I see turned on or off.)

Open about:permissions.
Set "Maintain Offline Storage" for 'All Sites' to "Always Ask" (or set dom.indexedDB.enabled to true).
Filter on yahoo. Set every yahoo domain listed in the Permissions Manager to block Offline Storage.
Go to https://www.yahoo.com/.
Refresh the page a couple of times.
Expected:
Yahoo stores nothing in storage\default.
What happens:
Yahoo stores content in storage\default.

(PM 27.3 Win 7 x86)

[Marcus]

You have full control over this kind of data per website. This is exactly why page info->permissions an the permissions manager (in the menu) exists.

I don't see this working.

After tweaking a couple of sites in "permissions" I also don't see this working, the folder gets populated as usual.

Screenshot_2017-05-23_10-33-11.png

[Moonchild]

"Always ask" only kicks in after the maximum default is stored. You can blame Mozilla for dropping in a quick hack to allow data by default to not break sites.

[coffeebreak]

"Always ask" only kicks in after the maximum default is stored.

In case there was confusion...
I had set dom.indexedDB.enabled to true, but yahoo domains were set to "Block" (not to "Always Ask").

What's the maximum default / Is it per domain / Can it be controlled by pref / If so, which one(s)?
I repeated previous steps with offline-apps.quota.warn set to 1; also tried 0.
Same result as before.

Also tried reverse exceptions:
dom.indexedDB.enabled was false, yahoo was "Allow"
This didn't work either: Yahoo stored nothing in storage\default.
Why would a required 'maximum storage default' affect this?

[GMforker]

See #1112.

[Moonchild]

*sigh* This depends on something I apparently need to make a screenshot of before people understand.

[joe04]

I'd advise leaving dom.indexedDB.enabled as default; I briefly tried disabling it and some sites broke.

The way I deal with the <profile>/storage folder is to empty the .metadata files and set them read-only. The .sqlite files no longer matter and can be deleted. This prevents any potential super-cookie behavior without breaking sites. (This same hack also works in Firefox.)

Also note that IndexDB is not the same as offline storage in Options->Advanced->Network. That's appcache that you can see in about:cache