and then alphabetically by the site addresses themselves (for example, http://www.cnn.com). Site: Web sites are organized into one long, alphabetical list by site title. Folders are not used. Date: Web sites are organized into alphabetical lists by site title and grouped into folders by the date you visited them. See Figure 6-4. Figure 6-4: The Date view organizes Web sites into alphabetical lists by title and groups them in folders by the date you visited them. Most Visited: Web sites are organized into one long list ordered by how frequently you visited them, with the most frequented page appearing at the top of the list. Folders are not used. Last Visited: Web sites are organized into one long list ordered by when you last visited them, with the most recently visited page appearing at the top of the list. Folders are not used. See Figure 6-5. Figure 6-5: The Last Visited view organizes your Web sites into one long list ordered by when you last visited them. It takes just one click to open a folder in the History Sidebar, although double-clicking will work as well. Likewise, to access a Web site from the History Sidebar, simply click it once. Searching long-term history If you remember a word or phrase that appears in the title of the Web site you want to revisit, you don't have to spend time browsing. Simply start typing in the Search text box at the top of the History Sidebar. As soon as you stop typing (or press Enter), Firefox searches long-term history and displays any matches - even if you are in the middle of a word, as demonstrated in Figure 6-6. (Searches are not case-sensitive, which means that firefox is considered equivalent to FireFox.) Figure 6-6: Type a word or phrase into the Search text box to search your history quickly. Cleaning up long-term history As convenient as it is to have computers remember things, it can also be unsettling to have your memories on display. After all, no matter how many times that darn brain forgets something important, it's still a pretty safe bet that anything you store in there is known to you and only you. However, anyone with physical access to your computer and (if you have one) to your computer login screen can view your long-term history. And the issues go beyond privacy: The larger your history gets, the more hard drive space Firefox requires. To clear short-term history, you simply close the tab or window you were using to browse. Luckily, clearing long-term history is about as easy. You can delete specific records or clear the whole shebang. Deleting individual entries from long-term history Removing specific records from long-term history is easy: 1. 2. Right-click the record you want to delete and choose Delete from the contextual menu that appears. If you're using a view that organizes Web sites into folders, you can also right-click a folder and choose Delete to delete the folder and everything within it, as illustrated in Figure 6-7. Figure 6-7: Right-click a folder and choose Delete to delete everything within the folder. Warning Deleting from history is not a reversible process; the Undo command won't be available after you follow these steps. However, note that deleting a record from history deletes only that particular entry. If you later visit that same Web site, it again appears in your long-term history.