History Granularity Topic is solved

[Deadgye]

Currently, history viewed by date is bucketed into "Today", "Yesterday", "Last 7 days", <Month-1>, <Month-2>, <Month-3>, <Month-4>, <Month-5>, "Older than 6 months". Am I missing some obvious way of bucketing history so that 90%+ of my history isn't lumped into one bucket? Heck, I don't think I can even tell how far back my history actually goes.
I feel like it would make more sense from every perspective to have buckets for all of the previous years that have history. Sub-buckets for the months of those previous years would be nice too, but I can understand not wanting to deal with sub-buckets.
I didn't see any add-ons that looked like they would resolve this when I searched add-ons for history. Is this even something that should require an add-on? Every time I forget and remember, I'm surprised this isn't the default behavior. Is there a reason why it's instead the way it currently is?

I can't be the only one that has avoided using history because trying to find something in the "Older than 6 months" bucket is worse than finding a needle in a haystack, right?

[Lucio Chiappetti]

I can't be the only one that has avoided using history because ...

Personally I am one who has always avoided keeping history after closing the browser (when I used to do that only once in several months as I kept the work computer permanently on and logged on), and has used an extension to keep only Today and Yesterday (which I do eve now from an home computer which is often switched off). Things which are really useful to me are kept in a variety of bookmark folders ... other places I visit sporadically are fetched via a search engine).

[Blacklab]

I didn't see any add-ons that looked like they would resolve this when I searched add-ons for history. Is this even something that should require an add-on?

Due to the way the Places database works and how the 'Frecency' algorithm curates browsing history this (trying to find something in the "Older than 6 months" bucket) is probably something best done by a browser extension and/or other utilities/tools external to the browser (e.g. Nirsoft's 'MZHistoryView v1.70 - History Viewer for Mozilla/Firefox Browsers').

The simplest way to search a long way back in time is probably by using the 'Norwell History Tools' extension which is still available from JustOff's Classic Add-ons Archive (CAA) and from the 59 page captures saved by WayBackMachine (WBM) e.g. this June 2017 WBM snapshot of the original Add-ons Mozilla (AMO) page... which also has a clean copy of the extension's final version .xpi file available from the live '+ Download Now' button (using right-click 'Save Link As...' works best).

Norwell doesn't interfere, touch or modify firefox internal routines or existing history database. It only displays already existing data differently.

Tested 'norwell_history_tools-3.1.0.2-fx.xpi' briefly on Pale Moon 32.5.0. The extension downloads, loads, enables, displays a working toolbar icon, opens a working tab page, disables, and can be removed correctly without any problems AFAICS. (Note: Norwell's toolbar button is loaded into the Customize window on installation... open and drag the black 'H' button onto a toolbar.)

The Norwell History Tools button opens a tab page (chrome://norwell/content/norwell.xul). The Norwell tab page appears to work correctly and lists all browsing history in time order... the in-page buttons, search, right-click, and double-click on history items, etc. work. However, only a minimal 'current session only' test possible here. (Preferences set to 'Clear history when Pale Moon closes'.)

Norwell History Tools - Add-on Mozilla page - web.archive.org.png

Norwell History Tools - Add-ons Mozilla (AMO) page (top half) - on web.archive.org

Norwell History Tools - Add-ons Mozilla page - tab page expanded.png

Norwell History Tools - example tab page - on Add-on Mozilla (AMO)

PS. Further reading - 6 pages of '[EXT] Norwell history tools' topic on Mozillazine forums.

[Deadgye]

Tested 'norwell_history_tools-3.1.0.2-fx.xpi' briefly on Pale Moon 32.5.0. The extension downloads, loads, enables, displays a working toolbar icon, opens a working tab page, disables, and can be removed correctly without any problems AFAICS.

PS. Further reading - 6 pages of '[EXT] Norwell history tools' topic on Mozillazine forums.

Sweet. Thanks a lot for the in-depth response. This looks like it can fulfill my wants so I'll definitely give it a try.
It looks a little less convenient than being able to skim through better native buckets, but the query capabilities might more than make up for that. I didn't even realize the backend DB was closer to an audit log than what the browser presents to us.