I was having some issues with Firefox 3.6, and I noticed while doing a backup that there was a file called urlclassifier3.sqlite in the backup that was rather large.
Having once worked on both writing marginal almost-malware-adware, and also writing things that dealt with same, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t some kind of ad-targeting thing that was installed along with an extension or something.
I came across the article Make Firefox Faster by Vacuuming Your Database and it explains a bit about why this file exists, why it grows, and a way to potentially solve issues by opening up the Firefox Error Console and executing this command:
Components.classes["@mozilla.org/browser/nav-history-service;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsPIPlacesDatabase).DBConnection.executeSimpleSQL("VACUUM");
This is hinting to me that browsers are getting way too complicated. I mean, as someone who has developed web applications since NCSA Mosaic was the only browser, it’s been readily apparent how this thing that was designed to show brochures on the nets has grown through a series of hacks to include scripting and a DOM to allow one to write “applications” using the browser.
The browser sucks for this. A lot. HTTP wasn’t designed to do half of what it does, the stuff that makes up a browser is like a crazy house of cards, and I’m going to stop right there and save this rant for another post.
