I hate the .bash_history file. It never contains what I want, screws up when using multiple sessions and generally contains junk. I like to disable the .bash_history file, while still keeping the ability to push the “up”-key to scroll through earlier commands in the same session.

The way to do this is to set $HISTFILE to /dev/null. Bash will now log all its history to a nice, black hole.

This can be done at the beginning of ~/.bashrc

...
HISTFILE=/dev/null
...

There. Now I wont forget.