The Fleeting Footprints
If you are using Mozilla Firefox as your primary web browser on an Ubuntu system, you might encounter a privacy feature that feels like a bug: the browser automatically deleting your entire browsing history, cookies, and active logins every time you close the application window. This behavior mimics “Private Browsing” or “Incognito” mode but applies to your standard browsing sessions. While excellent for public computers or shared workstations where you don’t want to leave a trace, this automatic deletion is highly disruptive for daily use, as you will constantly have to log back into websites and lose your autocomplete suggestions for frequently visited URLs.
Disabling Strict Privacy Policies in Firefox
To stop Ubuntu (specifically via the default Firefox browser) from automatically deleting your browsing history and cookies upon exit, you must adjust the browser’s internal privacy and history retention settings.
Open Firefox. Click the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the top-right corner of the window and select Settings. In the left-hand sidebar, click on Privacy & Security. Scroll down the page until you find the History section. You will see a dropdown menu labeled “Firefox will”. If this is set to “Never remember history”, the browser is acting as if it is permanently in Private Browsing mode. Change this dropdown to Remember history. If you prefer more granular control, change it to Use custom settings for history. If you choose custom settings, ensure that the checkbox next to Clear history when Firefox closes is completely unchecked. By removing this checkmark, Firefox will immediately stop wiping your data when you close the window, preserving your session data for the next time you boot up your Ubuntu machine.