How to REALLY clear the address bar history? and other issues

How to REALLY clear the address bar history? and other issues

Hi everyone,

First off: I love Opera, and would hope that I will never have to go back to anything else again. But there are a few problems that I need a solution for, and that have driven me slightly nuts recently. I have searched far and wide and can't find a workable solution for this. Along the way, I have found a number of things that are not really so great about Opera, which I would like to point out; but I mainly need a solution for the first problem please, if anyone knows one:

PROBLEM 1:

I want no web addresses that I have ever visited, either by following a link or by typing them into the address bar directly, to be in the history of my address bar. I dislike that every time I start typing anything into the address bar, it automatically starts suggesting addresses from my history - which I have disabled anyway! I have disabled and deactivated everything you can possibly imagine in Opera that stores any kind of information, I have gone through all existing menus and tried loads of different combinations, the result is still the same: While I can't click on the little grey arrow at the right end of the address bar and scroll through the addresses it holds, they are still there - at least the ones I typed in directly - and pop up underneath the address bar when I type in it.

I searched Opera Help. I searched the web. I then searched the forums here and didn't find anything that would help me either. I find it a major glitch in Opera's security and privacy strategy; and I find it pretty bad service that I have to find this forum, sign up for it, post my problem and hope that someone knows the solution just to solve this little thing!

The only statement I have found that seems to be related to the issue is "set opera:config#UserPrefs|MaxDirectHistoryLines to 0" - advice that even I as a reasonably well routined software user can simply not understand without spending even more time reading about the guts of the browser that I just want to simply use!

If this can't be switched off in Opera easily and once and for all, I will give up using Opera, though I really love 99% of the rest of it. As a simple rule, dear Opera makers: Never ever introduce additional functionality without it being able to be switched off simply and quickly by the average user who might not like it!

PROBLEM 2:

After registering here for using the forums, I couldn't log into the forums - other than using the Internet Explorer! What the hell? On Opera, I log into the forums; go to a forum; click "create new post" - and then thrown to some page that says "You are now logged in", while the top of that page still displays the "log in" button, and I am indeed not able to post anything. So essentially I am forced not only go through all the effort described above to solve a realtively small problem, but also to use Opera's biggest competitor browser to get help with Opera problems. Great.

PROBLEM 3:

Every time Opera pops up a window to inform me that a new update is available and give me the options "do it now" or "later" or similar, in the same window there also is a little grey check box for "automatically update in the future" - and this box is pre-checked! I can un-check it, but if I'm in a hurry and just click "later", Opera will never ask me about updating again and just do it, and I'll never be aware of it. A box like that must be un-checked people. It sneakily undermines the control a user has over their software and computer to do such a thing. Don't do that in the future please, as this sort of programming means that a user can't trust you anymore and has to triple-check everything Opera does all the time, like with so much other software out there that doesn't respect privacy and security of their customers. I dont' want to have to go through endless tabs of settings to make sure my browser is not doing something behind my back!

I apologise for my frustration, but that's how I feel. I don't understand how someone can make such a great browser and then overlook such obvious things.

Anyway... suggestions, anyone?

THANKS!

Cheers,

Matt

1. opera:config#direct%20history%20lines and set to 0
2. works just fine in a clean install of 10.51 here
3.

Originally posted by MattMEMEME:

like with so much other software out there that doesn't respect privacy and security of their customers

it even helps your privacy and security by installing the latest version which fixes security and privacy issues!
during the update process no data is sent to Opera, it's just a simple GET request for a XML file and if that one says there's a later version available another GET request to download it
more and more software-vendors are enabling automatic (background) updates nowadays btw, just because a load of users never bother to update, thus using insecure versions for ages and exposing their systems to a huge risk

Hi again,

thanks for your quick response, but it doesn't help, if clicking the link and setting the value to 0 is what you meant me to do - the value already is zero, nonetheless the history of directly typed in web addresses is still there. That exactly is the problem.

Re privacy: I regard any software that does anything that changes its behaviour - like updates - without asking me as malicious, with or without intent to be that. I want to be the only instance that decides if I allow a change of software on my machines, and if a software is trying to do such changes "under the radar", e.g. by pre-checking my "agreement" box of such an option, that's highly undesirable. It may well increase my safety on other levels and the changes may be harmless, but I still own these computers, and I want to be asked for my express agreement to such changes. Would you want your mechanic to change software of, say, the anti blocking system of your car without asking you first? I doubt that. Same here. More, this type of attitude often and easily turns into a slippery slope - the next instance where the user's agreement is bypassed in that way may be just a teeny tiny bit more intrusive, and so on. Soon Opera does what so much other software does already: Lots of things that the user is not aware of at all, thereby completely loosing the trust of its user base. Just one example of many: Real Player. If you install it and then look at the preferences settings, you'll be amazed at what it does by default unless you actively look at these settings AFTER installation and change them to safer choices.

That users don't bother to update is a weak argument for default silent updates. It's the user's decision, and taking away control from those users who are active about their computer security to help those who couldn't care less is going in the wrong direction. CHOICE is the key word here. You may mean well, but I want to be the one who ultimately decides how to run my system.

The fact that more and more other software makers do this is no excuse either; and if you choose to go down that road, you'll just become one of many who don't respect their users.

If anyone can explain the advice of the previous poster in plain english or help solve my actual problem otherwise that would be great, as I couldn't solve it to date, and am still loving Opera for many reasons - hoping that I can find a solution for this, as I won't accept it this way and will switch to something else if I have to.

Hoping,

Matt

are you sure you are really seeing typed addresses and not bookmarks or history search content? Cause disabling that entry makes Opera not save any addressbar input (and it works just fine in 10.51)

Originally posted by MattMEMEME:

Would you want your mechanic to change software of, say, the anti blocking system of your car without asking you first?

I don't see any problem with him doing that if it improves my safety. And the first time he did it he asked me "should i update it without asking you again in future?" and i agreed to it