How in the Tech

Uncover your Website Addictions with Firefox 3

By Adam Myers ⋅ August 7, 2008 ⋅ Tags: Firefox, Privacy

One of the under-the-hood features new to Firefox 3 is it’s usage tracking. Most of us are aware that our browsers keep a running history of the websites we visit but Firefox takes it a step further – it keeps a running tally on the frequency of visits. It is from this collected data that Firefox uses to power the Awesome Bar’s suggestions as well as the the smart bookmark Most Visited sites. This can be quite a revealing feature as well as an interesting insight into when and where we spend most of our time as we surf – all with one numerical value. What is your guilty addiction? The findings may surprise even you so let’s find out!

As you would imagine, the numbers are viewable from Firefox’s History Menu from the menubar, more explicitly Show All History.

Once in the History Library, right-click on one of the column headers and check-off Visit Count.

Now you can sort your browsing history since the last time your history was cleared by frequency be clicking the now visible Visit Count column header. In my example, you can see my current addiction to Goal Line Blitz.

Additionally, if you want to quickly see how frequently you visit the current site you are browsing just left click on the favicon to the left of the URL in the address bar, then select More Information.

Almost 17,000 visits – don’t judge!