I am running Netscape 4.6 on a PC with Windows 95. I only recently upgraded to N’scape 4.6. For a long time, I was runing 4.0.
Here’s the problem. One of the new features of 4.6 is a “Clear Location Bar” button under preferences. Push the button and it clears all of your location bar memories. This is useful (use your imagination).
Funny thing is, each time I start 'scape, it has several URL’s stored in the location bar. They include sites I’d just as soon forget. I haven’t visited them in years (honest!). Where is the browser getting this info? I would like to find where it stores this info and delete it. Does anyone know where in Win95 Netscape 4.6 stores its location bar information? Clearing the history and both caches has no effect.
I input ‘clear location bar’ in a search engine & got this:
Problem:
After clearing the Location (Netsite) toolbar drop-down menu URL history, the entries
return if Communicator is restarted. It seems that the URL history cannot be cleared.
Explanation:
If you are not able to clear the Location (Netsite) toolbar and you have reviewed the
instructions in the following article:
http://help.netscape.com/kb/consumer/19961024-3.html,
yet the same URLs or entries appear when you restart Communicator, it is likely that
Communicator is using old information from a previous installation of Navigator 3.0 or
lower.
When you open Communicator, your preference information is loaded from the prefs.js< file
located in your Communicator user profile folder. If Communicator finds URL history items
listed there, it will display them in the Location bar drop-down menu URL history. If
Communicator finds no URL history listings in your prefs.js file, it will then look in the
Windows registry, where Navigator 3.0 and previous versions stored their preferences. If it
finds URL history listings there, Communicator will use those in your Communicator
session and copy them into your prefs.js file.
Solution:
Clearing the Navigator URL history entries in the Windows registry will prevent
Communicator from introducing them in your Communicator settings. Use the
instructions listed on the following page if you wish to clear the URL history in the registry:
(Navigator 2.0 - 3.04 on Windows 95, 98, and NT 4.0)
http://help.netscape.com/kb/consumer/19961024-3.html#2
After you have finished, clear the Communicator URL history. The next time you restart
Communicator, the URL history should remain empty.
To summarize, use the Navigator instructions to clear the URL history, then use the
Communicator instructions. This should resolve the problem.
One way I have found to get rid of these settings is to find the prefs.js file on your computer. Open it up in WordPad and edit the file. There is a big warning on top of the file not to alter the file, as it is generated by some other thing. But do it anyway. If you do it correctly, the offending entries will be removed. If not, Netscape will throw an error and recreate the file for you, which will give you the default file, and not your old info. Either way, you get the desired result. I’m sure there’s some correct way to do this, but I honestly don’t know what it is.
Another similar problem is that even if the location bar clears, the auto-complete thingy keeps working - you know, where you type http://www.str and it fills out the rest of http://www.straightdope.com? The information for this “feature” is also hard to find and is separate from the location bar. I believe it’s in a file called netscape.hst. I think. I use IE here at work and Netscape at home, so I can’t check here. But I think that’s right.
