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How do I clear active and / or authenticated sessions on a granular level?

kyotodesertfox
kyotodesertfox

When I visit a website, and I authenticate whether via username, or certificate / PKI, these credentials and authentication states gets stored somewhere. I want to know where that somewhere is, so I can terminate those one at a time manually.

I understand that I can go through the Options, and clear browsing data -- and yes, this will accomplish the same thing sorta -- however, this will kill ALL my authenticated sessions across ALL my tabs. I would like to know if there is a manual way where I can do it PER site, so that its not such a brute force method.

Final Note: I do not want to have to close out all my tabs (quit Firefox completely). Nor do I want to go through the options to do this. If I can be instructed as to where my session and authentication store location is, then this will answer my question.

I am an advanced user, and have no problems in working my way around my system to tailor it to my needs, I just dont know where to find this database store.

When I visit a website, and I authenticate whether via username, or certificate / PKI, these credentials and authentication states gets stored somewhere. I want to know where that somewhere is, so I can terminate those one at a time manually. I understand that I can go through the Options, and clear browsing data -- and yes, this will accomplish the same thing sorta -- however, this will kill ALL my authenticated sessions across ALL my tabs. I would like to know if there is a manual way where I can do it PER site, so that its not such a brute force method. Final Note: I do not want to have to close out all my tabs (quit Firefox completely). Nor do I want to go through the options to do this. If I can be instructed as to where my session and authentication store location is, then this will answer my question. I am an advanced user, and have no problems in working my way around my system to tailor it to my needs, I just dont know where to find this database store.

Chosen solution

This is most likely not possible as it involves to log out of the secret decoder ring (SDR) and sending a notification to close all http and ftp sessions (net:clear-active-logins).

See "sessions" in chrome://browser/content/sanitize.js

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All Replies (3)

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 10 Contributor

Edit: I wasn't thinking of HTTP Authentication. For those sessions, this reply doesn't apply.

I believe the answer is cookies (regular HTML cookies) and/or local storage (browser-based local storage and/or Flash-based local storage). Without those identifiers, you are just an anonymous browser not linked to a session on the server.

Although I think it's best to end your session on the server explicitly rather than rely on it timing out, you could test clearing cookies for a site to see whether that accomplishes what you want.

Try one or both of these methods:

(1) Page Info > Security tab

While viewing a page on the site:

  • right-click and choose View Page Info > Security > "View Cookies"
  • Alt+t (open the classic Tools menu) > Page Info > Security > "View Cookies"

(2) about:permissions

In a new tab, type or paste about:permissions and press Enter. Allow a few moments for the list on the left to populate, as this information needs to be extracted from a database.

Use the search box above the list to filter it to the most relevant domains. When you highlight a domain, you can Remove or Manage cookies for that site.

How well does that meet your needs?

Modified by jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator

Chosen Solution

This is most likely not possible as it involves to log out of the secret decoder ring (SDR) and sending a notification to close all http and ftp sessions (net:clear-active-logins).

See "sessions" in chrome://browser/content/sanitize.js

kyotodesertfox
kyotodesertfox Question owner

cor-el: From looking at "sessions", I see where the statement gets called. It looks like there is no easy way to...manipulate that, or play with the function call for customization.

I would even have been curious to find out if I were somehow able to load sanitize.js and sandbox it. Without knowing the inner workings of Firefox, though, I think that I will stop that train there.

I do appreciate your informative reply.