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Firefox saves search history even when explicitly told not to.

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Hi all,

I'm using Quantum 68.0.2 with the Google homepage as my start page. In recent weeks Firefox has begun to save my search history across multiple sessions (image 1), without any settings having been altered. This is alarming, as not only have I instructed Firefox not to save search history (image 2) and disabled history in Sync settings (image 3), but as you see I've also set it to clear history when closing, which of late seems to do nothing. Even after clearing history manually, searches I've made days ago still pop up in my Google suggestions after restarting the browser. Everything you see in purple is stuff I searched for last Friday, and even had the computer shut off over the weekend.

This happens even if I restart Firefox with all add-ons disabled. I've trawled the forums looking for a solution, but everything I've found is pretty old & involves "about:config" parameters that no longer apply as of quite a few versions ago.

Notice I have Google search suggestions turned on (image 4), but from my understanding this is separate from saving history, and should merely suggest frequently searched keywords. Of note is that the history in image 1 does not show up if searching Google from the address bar.

Completely at a loss for how to fix this. Thanks in advance for your assistance!

Hi all, I'm using Quantum 68.0.2 with the Google homepage as my start page. In recent weeks Firefox has begun to save my search history across multiple sessions (image 1), without any settings having been altered. This is alarming, as not only have I instructed Firefox not to save search history (image 2) and disabled history in Sync settings (image 3), but as you see I've also set it to clear history when closing, which of late seems to do nothing. Even after clearing history manually, searches I've made days ago still pop up in my Google suggestions after restarting the browser. Everything you see in purple is stuff I searched for last Friday, and even had the computer shut off over the weekend. This happens even if I restart Firefox with all add-ons disabled. I've trawled the forums looking for a solution, but everything I've found is pretty old & involves "about:config" parameters that no longer apply as of quite a few versions ago. Notice I have Google search suggestions turned on (image 4), but from my understanding this is separate from saving history, and should merely suggest frequently searched keywords. Of note is that the history in image 1 does not show up if searching Google from the address bar. Completely at a loss for how to fix this. Thanks in advance for your assistance!
Attached screenshots

All Replies (1)

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Hi protzenegger, the suggestions you see on the Google home page drop-down -- that is Google's search box, not a Firefox search box -- are from the web history in your Google Account, not Firefox search history.

I don't know whether you can suppress those suggestions without turning off web history. (I turned off my web history completely, so I only see the usual relevance-based suggestions there.)

More info: See & control your Web & App Activity - Computer - Google Search Help