browserhistory offers tools to read and analyse the browser history of Firefox with R. Support for other browsers might be added in the future.
You can install the development version of browserhistory from GitHub with:
# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("stibu81/browserhistory")Firefox stores the browser history in a SQLite database called
places.sqlite. The function read_firefox_history() reads the browser
history from this database and returns it as a tibble. The package
contains a small example database that is read in the following example:
library(browserhistory)
root_dir <- get_test_root_dir()
history <- read_browser_history(root_dir = root_dir)
history
#> # A tibble: 26 × 9
#> id visit_date url title visit_count last_visit_date
#> <int> <dttm> <chr> <chr> <int> <dttm>
#> 1 524118 2024-05-24 17:42:17 https://duc… Duck… 18 2024-05-24 17:42:17
#> 2 524119 2024-05-24 17:42:28 https://duc… <NA> 5 2024-05-24 17:42:28
#> 3 524120 2024-05-24 17:42:29 https://duc… fire… 11 2024-05-24 17:42:29
#> 4 524121 2024-05-24 17:42:30 https://duc… fire… 13 2024-05-24 17:42:30
#> 5 524122 2024-05-24 17:42:51 https://blo… A fr… 13 2024-05-24 17:42:51
#> 6 524123 2024-05-24 17:43:02 https://www… Inte… 9 2024-05-24 17:43:02
#> 7 524124 2024-05-24 17:43:15 https://en.… <NA> 6 2024-05-24 17:43:15
#> 8 524125 2024-05-24 17:43:15 https://en.… Wiki… 8 2024-05-24 17:43:15
#> 9 524126 2024-05-24 17:43:22 https://en.… <NA> 20 2024-05-24 17:43:22
#> 10 524127 2024-05-24 17:43:22 https://en.… <NA> 15 2024-05-24 17:43:22
#> # ℹ 16 more rows
#> # ℹ 3 more variables: description <chr>, prefix <chr>, host <chr>In order to read the history, you need to figure out where Firefox
stores the relevant files. The folder contains a file called
profiles.ini and subfolders for one or more profiles. Use the folder
that contains profiles.ini as the root directory.
The following list gives hints on where to find the root directory on a small number of systems:
- Ubuntu 20.04/22.04: If Firefox has been installed from a deb
package, the root directory is
~/.mozilla/firefox. (This might also be true for other Debian-based distributions.) If Firefox has been installed as a snap package, the root directory is~/snap/firefox/common/.mozilla/firefox. - Windows 10/11: The root directory is
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox, where<username>must be replaced by your user name.
You can use the function guess_root_dir() that tries to find a
suitable root directory according to the above rules.
guess_root_dir()
#> [1] "~/snap/firefox/common/.mozilla/firefox"Most of the functions that take a root directory as input use
guess_root_dir() as the default value. So, on some system, it will be
enough to simply call read_browser_history() without any inputs to get
a result:
read_browser_history()
#> # A tibble: 26 × 9
#> id visit_date url title visit_count last_visit_date
#> <int> <dttm> <chr> <chr> <int> <dttm>
#> 1 524118 2024-05-24 17:42:17 https://duc… Duck… 18 2024-05-24 17:42:17
#> 2 524119 2024-05-24 17:42:28 https://duc… <NA> 5 2024-05-24 17:42:28
#> 3 524120 2024-05-24 17:42:29 https://duc… fire… 11 2024-05-24 17:42:29
#> 4 524121 2024-05-24 17:42:30 https://duc… fire… 13 2024-05-24 17:42:30
#> 5 524122 2024-05-24 17:42:51 https://blo… A fr… 13 2024-05-24 17:42:51
#> 6 524123 2024-05-24 17:43:02 https://www… Inte… 9 2024-05-24 17:43:02
#> 7 524124 2024-05-24 17:43:15 https://en.… <NA> 6 2024-05-24 17:43:15
#> 8 524125 2024-05-24 17:43:15 https://en.… Wiki… 8 2024-05-24 17:43:15
#> 9 524126 2024-05-24 17:43:22 https://en.… <NA> 20 2024-05-24 17:43:22
#> 10 524127 2024-05-24 17:43:22 https://en.… <NA> 15 2024-05-24 17:43:22
#> # ℹ 16 more rows
#> # ℹ 3 more variables: description <chr>, prefix <chr>, host <chr>The structure of the root directory depends on the system. In all cases,
it contains the file profiles.ini that stores the information about
the available profiles. Use list_profiles() too see, which profiles
there are:
list_profiles(root_dir)
#> other default
#> "bad_profile" "test_profile"
#> attr(,"default")
#> [1] 2The test data contains two profiles and the second one is the default,
as is indicated by the attribute "default":
attr(list_profiles(root_dir), "default")
#> [1] 2The values of the vector indicate the directories in which the profile data is stored. As one can check, the test data indeed contain a directory for each profile:
list.files(root_dir, recursive = FALSE)
#> [1] "bad_profile" "profiles.ini" "test_profile"The full structure of the root directory on Linux looks as follows:
root_dir
├── bad_profile
│ └── somefile
├── profiles.ini
└── test_profile
└── places.sqlite
The profile test_profile actually contains the history database
places.sqlite (next to many other files in an actual root directory).
Sometimes, there are invalid profile like bad_profile that do not
contain places.sqlite.
On Windows, the root directory contains a directory Profiles that has
the profile directories as subdirectories. The equivalent of the test
data would have the following structure:
root_dir
├── Profiles
│ ├── bad_profile
│ │ └── somefile
│ └── test_profile
│ └── places.sqlite
└── profiles.ini
read_firefox_history() will automatically select the default profile,
but when there are several profiles and you want to read a different
one, you have to pass the name of the profile folder to the profile
argument as follows:
history <- read_browser_history(root_dir = root_dir, profile = "test_profile")
history
#> # A tibble: 26 × 9
#> id visit_date url title visit_count last_visit_date
#> <int> <dttm> <chr> <chr> <int> <dttm>
#> 1 524118 2024-05-24 17:42:17 https://duc… Duck… 18 2024-05-24 17:42:17
#> 2 524119 2024-05-24 17:42:28 https://duc… <NA> 5 2024-05-24 17:42:28
#> 3 524120 2024-05-24 17:42:29 https://duc… fire… 11 2024-05-24 17:42:29
#> 4 524121 2024-05-24 17:42:30 https://duc… fire… 13 2024-05-24 17:42:30
#> 5 524122 2024-05-24 17:42:51 https://blo… A fr… 13 2024-05-24 17:42:51
#> 6 524123 2024-05-24 17:43:02 https://www… Inte… 9 2024-05-24 17:43:02
#> 7 524124 2024-05-24 17:43:15 https://en.… <NA> 6 2024-05-24 17:43:15
#> 8 524125 2024-05-24 17:43:15 https://en.… Wiki… 8 2024-05-24 17:43:15
#> 9 524126 2024-05-24 17:43:22 https://en.… <NA> 20 2024-05-24 17:43:22
#> 10 524127 2024-05-24 17:43:22 https://en.… <NA> 15 2024-05-24 17:43:22
#> # ℹ 16 more rows
#> # ℹ 3 more variables: description <chr>, prefix <chr>, host <chr>On Windows, since the profile directories are inside a subdirectory, the equivalent call would look as follows:
history <- read_browser_history(root_dir = root_dir, profile = "Profiles/test_profile")