How-To Geek
Access Your Browsing History Easier in Firefox
Do you find searching through your browser’s history frustrating because the default History Menu & Manager are not as intuitive as you need? Now you can make that history easier to search through with the History Submenus extension.
Before
Here is our browser with the default “History Menu” displayed. There is not a lot that we can look at in detail is there? We need to be able to see more than just some of today’s browsing history…
But to do that means opening the “Library Window”. Not good…not good at all. Time to make all of that browser history easy to access from the “History Menu” itself!
Options
Once you have installed the History Submenus extension and restarted Firefox, you should take a quick look at the options. Adjust the number of items shown for each of the categories to best suit your personal needs. For the “Label” option, there are only two choices…”Date Format” or “Number Of Days Ago Format”.
History Submenus in Action
It is easy to see a big difference from the default “History Menu”. Not only do you get to look through the most recent day of history at the top, but you also get to browse through the history for past days specifically (very nice!). Here you can see the “Date Format” style…
The “Date Format” style with all of the active and empty sub-menus showing…
And the “History Menu” when it is set for the “Number Of Days Ago Format” style.
Conclusion
If you find yourself becoming frustrated with the default History Menu & Manager while trying to find a specific website/link, then the History Submenus extension will be a welcome addition to your browser.
Links
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Comments (6)
Akemi Iwaya (Asian Angel) is our very own Firefox Fangirl who enjoys working with multiple browsers and loves 'old school' role-playing games. Visit her on Twitter and Google+.
- Published 10/27/09
The weather Bug is great, very happy with it
Thank you
Soulman45
I was reading the article and found myself getting frustrated at the lack of details on how to do many of the steps:
For example “but that means opening the “Library Window”” , there is no menu entry for “Library Window” one should not assume that the reader will know that the “Show All History” opens the “Library Window”
Second example: the article goes from “Time to make all of that browser history easy to access from the “History Menu” itself!” to ” Once you have installed the History Submenus extension and restarted Firefox” without ever introducing the “History SubMenus” extension. I eventually found the extension link at the absolute end of the article where it does the reader almost no good at all.
Overall I love the detail in the “How-To-Geek” articles but this one lost the reader without providing the needed detail to follow the steps involved.
Thanks.
kevin
I agree with Kevin. The article should give more detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to access browsing history in FF the easy way. This is a great, time-saving tip though.
@kevin & Desk Toys – Installing the extension automatically switches the History Menu over to the new style. From there it is simply a matter of choosing the display style in the options that best suits your needs. ^__^
I am unable to clear the history. Also need to clear temporary files. Need help with both.
@Dorothy Brannon – This is a great program for cleaning out junk from Firefox and other programs on your computers.
CCleaner Homepage
http://www.ccleaner.com/
Make certain that you download the slim version at the bottom of this page so that you do not have the Yahoo Toolbar installed.
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/builds