David wrote:

><<I believe this colouring of links is based on checking the link target
>against a list in RAM in the current running instance of the browser.  It's
>not written to disk anywhere, so when the browser is shut down or the
>computer rebooted, it's gone.  The next time the browser runs, it starts
>building a new list from scratch.>>


I don't think that can be right, if I'm reading David correctly.  That 
implies that your links will revert to blue every time you reboot.

But that doesn't happen---at least, not on my IE-based browser (Maxthon).

Nor is this facility based on the browser or cookies caches---because 
mine's set to empty every time the browser closes, and I clear the cookies 
cache frequently.  Despite this, visited links generally maintain their red 
coloring for many weeks.

Nor is it entirely a function of each website, although some sites have 
this capacity.  But the "visited sites" coloring history is universal, 
therefore it cannot be solely site-generated.

This only leaves the registry---which ties in somewhat with David's thesis, 
as the registry is loaded into RAM at every boot. So to that extent he is 
right.

One could check this theory by visiting a new site, then rebooting and 
doing a registry restoration back to, say, a week ago.  If my theory is 
right, the visited link will have reverted to blue.  Or perhaps a further 
check could be done by restoring registry to maybe a year ago---then see if 
old links from that time are then showing as "visited".

Another alternative could be that there is another hidden cache somewhere 
which stores this info.

The next question, then, is:  If this history is indeed kept in the 
registry, then where?  I suspect it might be in one of those hidden places 
like a CLSID where you can't access the contents.

I have a little freeware utility called "Computer History Viewer"-- 
http://www.internet-disk-cleaner.com/viewer/history_viewer.htm.  Included 
in its functions is an IE cache, cookie and history viewer and reader.

If someone were clever enough to dissect its .exe file with a hex editor, I 
suppose you could discover where it points to in order to read this 
info.  Then, to get back to the original question, you could save that part 
of the registry, or whatever, as a .reg file for future restoration.  (That 
is, assuming that is where the info we want is stored.)

Has anyone noticed---if you use a full internet history cleaner, does this 
remove your colored visited links?
As I have no such utility (I'm content just to clear the caches manually) I 
can't check this for myself.
If the facility is internal to one's computer, which I believe to be the 
case, I would expect such a utility to remove that record as part of its 
cleanup. Therefore your "visited" links would disappear every time you do a 
cleanup.

It's an interesting question.

Don Penlington



 From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
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