What are all these +++ directories?

[Rav]

Running Windows 7, Firefox 50.1.0. Under my Firefox profile, under
storage\default, are a bunch of directories that start with http+++ or
https+++, such as http+++www.cnn.com, https+++plus.google.com, etc. I
thought they might be DOM storage, but when I installed the Web Storage
Viewer extension, they didn't show up there. They're not cookies,
because they don't match up at all to the few cookies I had (and the
directories remained after I deleted those cookies). There are 71 top
level directories, with a total of 1018 files and 1565 directories under
those. Any idea what these directories are for? And can I get rid of
them? Thanks.

[WaltS48]

I believe we determined in this thread
<https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Storage_API> that
they are web storage.

<https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Storage_API>

[PietB]

Still I'm wondering:
- Why is it in a folder called "default"?
- Just checked that folder and found that out of the 19 items present
17 have exactly the same timestamp, which seems to coincide with my
last update of FF (which I always do manually). Why?
- There's an entry "web.whatsapp.com" which I never visited or will
ever visit. So why is that entry there?

And the key question also posed by the OP: can all (or at least the
"old" or "inactive" ones) safely be removed?

-p

[Dave Pyles]

To answer just the "Key question": When I run Ccleaner it deletes all of
those folders without causing browsing problems. The sites just
recreate them.
Dave Pyles

[Arlette Harcourt]

Response to "Dave Pyles"
I found this comment most interesting. I have not found that in Firefox but I do not dig as deep as you do in Fox guts.
I have such documents saved in my bookmarks because that is how I rate the interest/validity of the links I am saving: [+ to ++++]
I cannot imagine Firefox copying that format but one never knows...
I will look to see what others have to suggest.
Keep us posted on what you find :-)

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[Dave Pyles]

Response to Arlette Harcourt who should have bottom poster her comment:
This is just a guess but I think the +++ is simply there to replace
"://" so the directories would not be mistaken for URLs and really has
nothing to do with "rating" anything.

Dave Pyles

[Dave Pyles]

Actually I was wrong. the plus signs are there because colon and slash
are forbidden characters in folder names on Windows and probably other
operating systems as well.
Dave Pyles

[VanguardLH]

PietB <www.godfatherof.nl/@opt-in.invalid> wrote:

> There's an entry "web.whatsapp.com" which I never visited or will ever
> visit. So why is that entry there?

As I recall from recent online reading, add-ons and plug-ins can use DOM
storage, too. Have one of the following installed?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=whatsapp&appver=50.0&platform=windows

[VanguardLH]

Rav <Pa...@cais.com> wrote:

> Running Windows 7, Firefox 50.1.0. Under my Firefox profile, under
> storage\default, are a bunch of directories that start with http+++ or
> https+++, such as http+++www.cnn.com, https+++plus.google.com, etc.

Just in case you were wondering why that syntax was used for naming,
colon (:) and forward slash (/) are not legitimate characters in a path
name. You cannot have a folder named https://www.cnn.com. So colon and
forward slashes got replaced with legitimate placeholder characters.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx

> I thought they might be DOM storage, but when I installed the Web
> Storage Viewer extension, they didn't show up there. They're not
> cookies, because they don't match up at all to the few cookies I had
> (and the directories remained after I deleted those cookies). There
> are 71 top level directories, with a total of 1018 files and 1565
> directories under those. Any idea what these directories are for?
> And can I get rid of them? Thanks.

Under Options -> Advanced -> Network, I have the web cache configured
for zero (override enabled, zero cache size). I also have Firefox purge
DOM storage (Offline Website Data) when it exits. I don't want any
site to leave behind its data (claimed to be user data) on my computer.
If I revisit a site, I will re-login and start a new session there. I
also have Firefox purge everything on its exit (plus I have CCleaner
cleanup Firefox, too, on occasion) which includes Site Preferences
(which has been shown before and still allows tracking by sites when
using Firefox). As a result, I don't have the storage subfolders you
mention.

[Dave Royal]

Rav <Pa...@cais.com> Wrote in message:

Discussed on here just 10 days prior to your post.
--
(Remove any numerics from my email address.)

[PietB]

Dave Pyles wrote:

> PietB wrote:
>> And the key question also posed by the OP: can all (or at least the
>> "old" or "inactive" ones) safely be removed?
>

> To answer just the "Key question": When I run Ccleaner it deletes
> all of those folders without causing browsing problems. The sites
> just recreate them.

Thanks for the "key answer". ;-)

-p

[PietB]

VanguardLH wrote:

> PietB wrote:
>> There's an entry "web.whatsapp.com" which I never visited or will ever
>> visit. So why is that entry there?
>
> As I recall from recent online reading, add-ons and plug-ins can use DOM
> storage, too. Have one of the following installed?
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=whatsapp&appver=50.0&platform=windows

Nope, none of them.

-p

[Rav]

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, neither thing worked for me. I
checked to clear Offline Website Data upon exit, but it didn't. And I
checked all the Firefox options in CCleaner (after downloading the
latest version), and those directories remain after cleaning. The only
thing I haven't tried yet is your suggestion of setting the web cache
size to zero.

[Rav]

Followup: Under Offline Web Content, it said my application cache was
using 0 bytes of disk space. I clicked Clear Now anyway, but again, the
directories remained.

[VanguardLH]

Those folders you see are from old Firefox sessions. They weren't
created during the current Firefox session to then have Firefox know
what to purge on exit. I doubt it does a recursive subfolder wipe. So
configure Firefox as mentioned above, exit Firefox, delete those old
session folders in Windows Explorer or in a command shell, then load
Firefox to see if those folders get created again.

[VanguardLH]

Dave Royal <da...@dave123royal.com> wrote:

> Rav <Pa...@cais.com> Wrote in message:
>
>> Running Windows 7, Firefox 50.1.0. Under my Firefox profile, under
>> storage\default, are a bunch of directories that start with http+++ or
>> https+++, such as http+++www.cnn.com, https+++plus.google.com, etc. I
>> thought they might be DOM storage, but when I installed the Web Storage
>> Viewer extension, they didn't show up there. They're not cookies,
>> because they don't match up at all to the few cookies I had (and the
>> directories remained after I deleted those cookies). There are 71 top
>> level directories, with a total of 1018 files and 1565 directories under
>> those. Any idea what these directories are for? And can I get rid of
>> them?
>

> Discussed on here just 10 days prior to your post.

Subject header was ...? Would it have a datestamp 10 calendar days from
Rav's 12/25/2016 original post or from your 12/26/2016 reply? Although
he pops in occasionally, Rav may not visit here often enough to know
about the prior thread. Identification would help, especially since
there is no guarantee that scanning through Subjects will point to a
discussion that included "DOM" (I don't see "dom" mentioned in a Subject
header until way back to 11/6/2016).

[Dave Royal]

VanguardLH <V...@nguard.LH> Wrote in message:

Subj: 'What is storage folder purpose' on 10/12/16
Yeah - I miscounted the days .
Can't copy/paste in this app.
It's not DOM storage

[WaltS48]

This is the link from Dec. 9th I meant to post in my other reply which somehow didn't get proofread.

<https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.support.firefox/nneoeUmoYxQ/p2s2b_qcDAAJ>

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[VanguardLH]

Dave Royal <da...@dave123royal.com> wrote:

> VanguardLH <V...@nguard.LH> Wrote in message:
>
>> Dave Royal <da...@dave123royal.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Rav <Pa...@cais.com> Wrote in message:
>>>
>>>> Running Windows 7, Firefox 50.1.0. Under my Firefox profile, under
>>>> storage\default, are a bunch of directories that start with http+++ or
>>>> https+++, such as http+++www.cnn.com, https+++plus.google.com, etc. I
>>>> thought they might be DOM storage, but when I installed the Web Storage
>>>> Viewer extension, they didn't show up there. They're not cookies,
>>>> because they don't match up at all to the few cookies I had (and the
>>>> directories remained after I deleted those cookies). There are 71 top
>>>> level directories, with a total of 1018 files and 1565 directories under
>>>> those. Any idea what these directories are for? And can I get rid of
>>>> them?
>>>
>>> Discussed on here just 10 days prior to your post.
>>
>> Subject header was ...?
>

> Subj: 'What is storage folder purpose' on 10/12/16

Alas, my configured retention (in my local client) is 60 days. I don't
keep them forever. The bigger the message store (I visit 58 newsgroups
which I recently pared down) then the slower is the client on some
operations and the greater the chance for database corruption.
Thankfully Walt gave a URL to an archived copy.

> Yeah - I miscounted the days .
> Can't copy/paste in this app.

X-Newsreader: PiaoHong.Usenet.Client.VIP:1.65

Well, at least, it looks like you got rid of their spammifying bogus
signature.

> It's not DOM storage

I don't see how "Web Storage" (sessionStorage and localStorage) differs
from DOM Storage. Different name, same thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_storage
"Web storage and DOM storage ..."

In Firefox, you enable its "Offline Website Data" to purge DOM storage
(aka Web Storage) when it exits. In Internet Explorer, the option is
called "Cookies and website data". In Google Chrome, it's "Cookies and
other site and plug-in data".

[Dave Royal]

VanguardLH <V...@nguard.LH> Wrote in message:
> Dave Royal <da...@dave123royal.com> wrote:
>>
>> It's not DOM storage
>
> I don't see how "Web Storage" (sessionStorage and localStorage) differs
> from DOM Storage. Different name, same thing.

The storage that uses the +++ directories, indexed DB, is not DOM
storage. DOM storage is local storage and session storage, which
is probably a subset of 'web storage'', which is a later
nomenclature.

Several of my addons use local storage. In the early days Fx used
to clear it along with cookies - there was quite a bit of
discussion in bugzilla about it. As more types of storage were
invented the 'clear private data' options got more numerous -
though it's obviously hard to explain what the various types are
in simple usage. Some folk just like zapping thus stuff as a
matter of principle, then complain my addons don't
work!