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Re: [tor-talk] if browser remembers URLs visited before shutdown even during Never Remember History
In general, Tor Browser doesn't write any history to disk - by design.
If you look in about:config at settings whether to use disk cache, it
should be set to false.
browser.cache.disk.enable;false
If you have enough RAM, you can do the same in regular Firefox. Allow
enough memory to handle browsing.
browser.cache.memory.max_entry_size;512000 or 1000000.
RAM's a whole lot faster than a disk - even SSDs.
There have been many problems through the yrs on not deleting cache,
cookies, history - you name it - the way it was supposed to.
I set the clear history UI to clear everything but site preferences
(cookie exceptions).
Mozilla has changed the Privacy & Security area even more in v63, so I
wouldn't be surprised if there are more bugs.
I used to use addons to clear cache, history, because Fx didn't do it
completely. Maybe 3 letter agencies are demanding (or paying) that
history not be cleared as advertised. There have always been privacy (&
security) issues w/ all browsers that dragged on forever. As far as we
know, it's still no where near as bad as IE of old, where they hid at
least one history file, as a system, hidden file(s). But you couldn't
search & find it - no matter what. You had to KNOW the exact, long path
to the file & enter that before you could delete it.
Ol' Bill's a big philanthropist now. n!m
On 9/25/18 8:33 PM, Nick Levinson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 25, 2018, 2:01:04 AM EDT, Joe
<joebtfsplk@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> * * * * *
> Is the claim that Firefox (vs. TorBrowser, based on Firefox esr
version) stores visited URLs in places.sqlite regardless of settings
under > Privacy & Security?
> The subject of this message is confusing. Is it asking the
question, "does browser remember URLs..."?
> Or telling us, "browser does remember URLs..."?
>
> You said it's years old. I doubt that would've slipped by Tor
Project & all users for years.
> Where is the data claimed to be stored?
>
> The title sound like, "if Firefox remembers URLs visited before
shutdown, then they won't be deleted, even if that's checked under
Clear > History.
> If I understand you & the subject, the claim is that even when
"Never Remember History" is checked, it is remembering visited URLs
*during* that session, but deletes them when the browser is closed, or
if "Clear History" is used during the session?
>
> However, if "remember browsing and download history" is checked AND
you DON'T have "Always Use Private Browsing Mode", TBB will > remember
history during the session, but not after shutdown.
>
> As far as I've ever seen, TBB deletes any history of any type,
whether you have "clear history" settings checked, or not. That's by
design.
>
> How is it a security leak? During a session, are sites supposedly
able to tell which sites you visited, directly or indirectly?
>
> There was a bug in Fx many, many yrs ago - where sites could make a
query of some type & determine if sites had been visited. AFAIK, that
was fixed long ago.
> During that period, users couldn't have visited links change colors.
It's about Tor, but I'll explain as if Tor is based on Firefox by
describing the Firefox problem. Suppose it's set to Remember History.
I visit example.com. Firefox remembers the URL. So far, no problem.
Then I change Remember History to Never Remember History. I have no
idea that it's still remembering example.com. Someone inspecting my
computer can see that I visited example.com when I think they can't
see any history. That's a security leak.
One could argue why I'd let anyone inspect my computer. However, Never
Remember History is offered for a reason, probably as protection
against anyone inspecting my computer.
The URLs are definitely stored somewhere. I proved that. Which file
it's in, I don't know. It's stored somewhere available after powering
down and powering up, i.e., through a cold boot. I tried identifying
the exact location but failed. But it's somewhere there. I tested
without networking or a removable (flash) drive
(https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1476152#c10). Therefore,
it had to have been stored on my local hard drive.
The complaint for Firefox is years old. It still has not been solved
for Firefox. Thus, unless Tor people monitor most unpatched Firefox
complaints (and there are many and most of them are unimportant), Tor
people could have missed this one. A wontfix or invalid for Firefox
might not be a decision appropriate for Tor.
Users could easily miss it for years. The user interface says Never
Remember History. The meaning is unambiguous. The problem is that the
UI's meaning does not reflect the programming inside Firefox. Most
users would never test the truth of any UI. They would trust the UI.
Therefore, in this case, most users would be misled.
The title was about Tor, albeit inspired by Firefox's problem. Firefox
is definitely storing the URLs. If Tor uses the same design insofar as
relevant, then Tor is also storing the URLs.
Clear History is not the complaint's subject. As far as I know, Clear
History works. However, Never Rememmber History implies that the
history is being cleared just by selecting Never Remember History. If
a user should apply another step, the UI should not make a sweeping
overclaim or else it should explicitly tell the user to take that step.
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