Tor Browser remembering history for certain URLs even after restart
My Tor Browser has two entries in the moz_historyvisits
table in places.sqlite. The two URLs can come up during URL bar autocompletion, and also appear in the ctrl+H history window.
I noticed it just now when I saw URL bar autocompletions for URLs that were not bookmarks and were not open tabs. Here is a screenshot. The first three matches are bookmarks, as you can tell by the star icon. The accounts.google.com one is not a bookmark, but is for some reason being remembered across restarts.
The two URLs that are being remembered are:
- !https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?continue=https://www.blogger.com/comment-iframe.g?blogID%3D2266550428847361277%26postID%3D6186454555221678264%26blogspotRpcToken%3D3273703%26bpli%3D1&followup=https://www.blogger.com/comment-iframe.g?blogID%3D2266550428847361277%26postID%3D6186454555221678264%26blogspotRpcToken%3D3273703%26bpli%3D1&passive=true&go=true#%7B%22color%22%3A%22rgb(110%2C%20110%2C%20110)%22%2C%22backgroundColor%22%3A%22rgb(204%2C%20204%2C%20204)%22%2C%22unvisitedLinkColor%22%3A%22rgb(0%2C%200%2C%200)%22%2C%22fontFamily%22%3A%22Verdana%2CGeneva%2Csans-serif%22%7D
- !https://id.rlcdn.com/463496.gif?credir=https%3A%2F%2Fsimage4.pubmatic.com%2FAdServer%2FSPug%3Fo%3D3%26u%3D1292AC75-4860-4D0E-8AC2-F720B90009E0%26vcode%3Dbz0yJnR5cGU9MSZjb2RlPTMzMzkmdGw9MTI5NjAw%26piggybackCookie%3D&redirect=1 The first one kind of makes sense. If I click on it, it takes me to a comment field for the blog of BreakWa11, a circumvention developer whose blog I have visited in the past few months. It's not a top-level page though; seems like it belongs in an iframe. The other one looks like an advertising tracking pixel (hope it's nothing personal lol).
I found where the URLs are being stored: they are in the places.sqlite database, in the moz_places
table:
$ sqlite3 tor-browser_en-US/Browser/TorBrowser/Data/Browser/profile.default/places.sqlite
SQLite version 3.21.0 2017-10-24 18:55:49
Enter ".help" for usage hints.
sqlite> select * from moz_places;
[elided other entries which are my bookmarks]
68|https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?continue=https://www.blogger.com/comment-iframe.g?blogID%3D2266550428847361277%26postID%3D6186454555221678264%26blogspotRpcToken%3D3273703%26bpli%3D1&followup=https://www.blogger.com/comment-iframe.g?blogID%3D2266550428847361277%26postID%3D6186454555221678264%26blogspotRpcToken%3D3273703%26bpli%3D1&passive=true&go=true#%7B%22color%22%3A%22rgb(110%2C%20110%2C%20110)%22%2C%22backgroundColor%22%3A%22rgb(204%2C%20204%2C%20204)%22%2C%22unvisitedLinkColor%22%3A%22rgb(0%2C%200%2C%200)%22%2C%22fontFamily%22%3A%22Verdana%2CGeneva%2Csans-serif%22%7D||moc.elgoog.stnuocca.|1|1|0||-1|1510963636686206|jljYEjVwHSTz|0|47357881751906
[elided]
71|https://id.rlcdn.com/463496.gif?credir=https%3A%2F%2Fsimage4.pubmatic.com%2FAdServer%2FSPug%3Fo%3D3%26u%3D1292AC75-4860-4D0E-8AC2-F720B90009E0%26vcode%3Dbz0yJnR5cGU9MSZjb2RlPTMzMzkmdGw9MTI5NjAw%26piggybackCookie%3D&redirect=1||moc.ndclr.di.|1|1|0||-1|1513646987292092|AG--rmyoEVB2|0|47360465205581
[elided]
These two entries with id=68
and id=71
are referenced in the moz_historyvisits
table. Here is the whole table:
sqlite> select * from moz_historyvisits;
1|0|68|1510963636686206|6|0
2|0|71|1513646987292092|6|0
The fourth column looks like a microsecond timestamp, and the one for BreakWa11's blog matches the time frame during which I would have visited the site.
$ date -u -d @1510963636.686206
Sat Nov 18 00:07:16 UTC 2017
$ date -u -d @1513646987.292092
Tue Dec 19 01:29:47 UTC 2017
The moz_historyvisits
table seems to underlie the ctrl+H history window. When I open it, there are two entries corresponding to the months of the timestamps. However it doesn't list any URLs: if I click the expander arrows, the arrows just disappear without expanding anything. But if I search for a string like "http", I can make the URLs appear.
Ticket #23704 (moved) is potentially related; it's about the browser remembering tabs after upgrading. comment:3:ticket:23704 says "TBB 7.0.5/6 has places.history.enabled
set to true
by default. And now TBB 7.5a5 has it set to false
as a non-default value for unknown reason!" For what it's worth, my about:config looks like this:
=Preference Name = | =Status = | =Type = | =Value = |
---|---|---|---|
places.history.enabled | default | boolean | true |
places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages | user set | integer | 122334 |
On another computer of mine, the moz_historyvisits
table is empty and moz_places
contains only bookmarks.
This is with Tor Browser 7.0.11 64-bit.