Automatic history deletion after about a year

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Mæstro
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Automatic history deletion after about a year

Unread post by Mæstro » 2022-09-15, 19:58

Long ago, I could see that Pale Moon deletes my browser history on its own after roughly a year: though I have used Pale Moon since Ⅷ 19, and on Linux since installing it in Ⅻ 20, and I have never cleared my history, my oldest extant history dates to 28 Ⅸ 21. I recall, from having seen this in Firefox 56 ESR when I was still using it, that it is an inherited Mozilla feature. I like this feature, for it lets me tell which bookmarks I have left behind; this has been helpful in purging my library of needless entries. (For this, I am posting on this here and not in the browser support forum.) I would like to understand the automatic history deletion process better. Does Pale Moon clear the oldest entries after the browser history database is a given size?
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Re: Automatic history deletion after about a year

Unread post by Blacklab » 2022-09-15, 20:43

TheRealMaestro wrote:I would like to understand the automatic history deletion process better.
Looks like this is one of those very complex, obscure, and variable calculations! :)

Reminded me of the discussion in this forum back in February about how 'Frecency' is calculated. :think:

A quick look at some old Mozillazine and Mozilla Support pages doesn't find a simple answer... but perhaps hints at the more complex reality of the calculation... from links and comments in the 4 posts (at bottom) it seems the answer may be in the now 'disappeared' MDN article on 'Places Expiration'... that can still be found using WayBackMachine (WBM)...

This is an Oct 2015 capture of that MDN page: https://web.archive.org/web/20151003012 ... Expiration

Other WBM captures of that MDN page: https://web.archive.org/web/20170701000 ... Expiration

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=2281997
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=9299795
https://superuser.com/questions/1269516 ... ransient-c
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=3052951
Last edited by Blacklab on 2022-09-15, 20:48, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Automatic history deletion after about a year

Unread post by andyprough » 2022-09-15, 20:48

Blacklab wrote:
2022-09-15, 20:43
it seems the answer may be in the now 'disappeared' MDN article on 'Places Expiration'... that can still be found using WayBackMachine (WBM)...
Yes, it appears Firefox used to use 'places.history.expiration.max_pages', but Pale Moon now has a value of "122334' entered into the setting 'places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages'. So maybe after 122K history entries they start getting automatically deleted?

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Re: Automatic history deletion after about a year

Unread post by Blacklab » 2022-09-15, 20:56

In my Pale Moon's about:config I find the 'places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages' Pref is 'user set' to 87382

I have no idea how or why it is set to 87382? I have no recollection of ever changing that Pref? So I suspect this number may have been calculated by the algorithm described, but not specified, in the MDN article:

"Expiration is based on hardware specs, specifically on memory size and CPU cores. This means on mobile and old systems expiration will be more aggressive than on high-end hardware, to try keep the database size at a reasonable (and performant) value."

Anyway, I keep no history whatsoever, only bookmarks... so my Pref 'places.history.enabled' is 'user set' to false.

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Re: Automatic history deletion after about a year

Unread post by andyprough » 2022-09-15, 21:39

Blacklab wrote:
2022-09-15, 20:56
In my Pale Moon's about:config I find the 'places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages' Pref is 'user set' to 87382

I have no idea how or why it is set to 87382? I have no recollection of ever changing that Pref? So I suspect this number may have been calculated by the algorithm described, but not specified, in the MDN article:

"Expiration is based on hardware specs, specifically on memory size and CPU cores. This means on mobile and old systems expiration will be more aggressive than on high-end hardware, to try keep the database size at a reasonable (and performant) value."
Ahh, you are right, mine also says "user set", I just assumed everyone would have the same 122K as me. It must be the algorithm then.

Like you, I don't save my history, so it's kind of irrelevant - I'll never see an automatic deletion.

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Re: Automatic history deletion after about a year

Unread post by Moonchild » 2022-09-15, 22:33

"user set" in this case means that is was stored by the platform as a variable value. As the name says it's a transient value and subject to change.
The value in that field depends on a number of factors, including memory, disk space and as stated the frequency and how recent a history entry was added or its counts updated. In general though, the number of entries is very unlikely to be problematic but do keep in mind that browsing history is not as permanent as bookmarks are and entries will expire and get purged eventually. How quickly that happens depends on your browsing behaviour. If you visit many pages/sites in your browsing, then there will be more turnover, and your history range will be shorter.
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Re: Automatic history deletion after about a year

Unread post by Mæstro » 2022-09-16, 16:52

With this information, I could calculate how much specific interests or sites feature in my last year’s browsing history. For example, I have 2499 entries in my history for bandori and 1772 for BanG Dream (after subtracting entries where both tags appear), while my places.history… setting gives 111213; at least 38‰ of my web activity has been for my favourite anime fandom. About the same amount (36‰) is spent on the Internet Archive, with 6‰ more to Archive.is and its mirrors. Pixiv and Fanbox together are 27‰, doubtless with some very small overlap from English tags. Fan fiction not about bandori entails only 1‰. Another 164‰ (18235 entries) has been spent on The Free Dictionary, my chief internet reference; English–German dictionaries make another 24‰, these appearing about doubling from redirects when I use the search bar. Search engines make up 95‰ of my distinct pages visited, roughly evenly split between Mojeek (my present search engine) and my former choices of Qwant and MetaGer. 100‰ of results are from Invidious, across all instances; most have never been watched, for I have scripts disabled. This site enjoys 20‰ of my history. What curious features of your browsing history stand out to you?

Notwithstanding that the threshold mentioned in my first post, I can see from gathering the above that I have some web pages from 31 Ⅷ 21 still in the chronicle that do not appear when I open Older than six months, and are not bookmarks. Are they being deleted by the above named frecency over strict chronological order?
Off-topic:
Would anybody know how to get a proper non-breaking space? I have tried copying these from sites or using AltGr-Space, but I still get line breaks within thousands, units and dates with them.
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Re: Automatic history deletion after about a year

Unread post by somdcomputerguy » 2022-09-16, 19:37

TheRealMaestro wrote:
2022-09-16, 16:52
Off-topic:
Would anybody know how to get a proper non-breaking space?

Code: Select all

 
is the HTML non-breaking space character entity.
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Re: Automatic history deletion after about a year

Unread post by Moonchild » 2022-09-16, 19:47

Your calculations are likely wrong. the variable holds the number of distinct entries, not the number of visit to one site.
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Re: Automatic history deletion after about a year

Unread post by Mæstro » 2022-09-16, 20:32

I am aware, whence:
TheRealMaestro wrote:Search engines make up 95‰ of my distinct pages visited
I am doing this for my own entertainment, so I will not count the number of times I have visited each site, but I know that I have ten bookmarks that I have visited at least ten times in the last year.
somdcomputerguy wrote:
2022-09-16, 19:37

Code: Select all

 
is the HTML non-breaking space character entity.
How do I use this on the Pale Moon forum, and in documents (like LibreOffice Writer or in Gajim) where HTML is not used?
Browser: Pale Moon (Pusser’s repository for Debian)
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Re: Automatic history deletion after about a year

Unread post by somdcomputerguy » 2022-09-16, 20:41

TheRealMaestro wrote:
2022-09-16, 20:32
somdcomputerguy wrote:
2022-09-16, 19:37

Code: Select all

 
is the HTML non-breaking space character entity.
How do I use this on the Pale Moon forum, and in documents (like LibreOffice Writer or in Gajim) where HTML is not used?
Of that I am not quite sure. Good luck.
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Re: Automatic history deletion after about a year

Unread post by Kerebron » 2022-09-17, 06:42

Off-topic:
TheRealMaestro - To insert non-breaking space in LibreOffice, press Ctrl+Shift+Space.

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Re: Automatic history deletion after about a year

Unread post by Moonchild » 2022-09-17, 11:59

Off-topic:
I don't think it's possible to have non-breaking spaces survive the textual processing happening in phpBB if you enter them as unicode characters. For sanitization/security and similar reasons, text in posts is processed by php before being stored in the database. Wouldn't want a smartypants to cause SQL injection or what not, for example ;)
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