Firefox - web browser

[Simon.T]

[Moderator note: this is the primary Firefox Portable thread. View database entry.]

----

me went to http://www.mozilla.org/support/#third-party
me saw irc://irc.mozilla.org/firefox
me enter to irc://irc.mozilla.org/firefox
and... here we go!

My conversation with tymofiy << HowTo make FF Portable (Not Haller's!)
The important thing here is Geek to Live: Manage multiple Firefox profiles

start @ line 47 or 53

#firefox
[INFO] Channel view for “#firefox” opened.
-->| YOU (Yoram) have joined #firefox
=-= Topic for #firefox is “Welcome to the Firefox Community Channel | Have a question/problem? Just ask. If no one's around say "help!" | Support Forums: http://forums.mozillazine.org | Get Firefox: http://getfirefox.com”
=-= Topic for #firefox was set by gavin on יום שישי 19 אוקטובר 2007 04:09:59
=-= YOU are now known as lilo

01. <firebot> New Firefox - Build Config bug 401868 filed by l10n@mozilla.com.
02. <firebot> Bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=401868 nor, --, ---, nobody@mozilla.org, NEW, Determine list of localizations for Fx3B1
03. <lilo> where i can submit reqests about firefox?
04. <tymofiy> bugzilla.mozilla.org
05. <tymofiy> :)
06. <lilo> request to make a portable version
07. <lilo> officialy portable
08. <tymofiy> question to all who uses Firefox 3 build: how to disable full page zoom?
09. <lilo> not haller's
10. <lilo> bugzilla.mozilla.org?
11. |<-- donny has left irc.mozilla.org (Ping timeout)
12. |<-- zero has left irc.mozilla.org (Quit: leaving)
13. <tymofiy> yes, bugzilla
14. <lilo> thank you tymofiy
15. <tymofiy> through I highly doubt they would go for that.
16. <lilo> why not??
17. <lilo> "highly doubt" why?
18. <tymofiy> Firefox 3 is nearing its beta and portable is not even in plans
19. <tymofiy> and unofficial portable is very easy to do yourself
20. <lilo> so... maybe FF2 ?
21. <tymofiy> FF2 is in the wild
22. <firebot> New Firefox - Location Bar and Autocomplete bug 401869 filed by ronin.achilles@gmail.com.
23. <firebot> Bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=401869 nor, --, ---, nobody@mozilla.org, UNCO, Allow multiple words search in Auto-complete/Location Bar
24. <tymofiy> and only security fixes go there, no features.
25. <lilo> hhhhhmmmmzzzz...
26. <lilo> too bad
27. <lilo> do you know firefox portable (by haller)?
28. -->| donny (donny@moz-15491B6B.pitt.east.verizon.net) has joined #firefox
29. <firebot> ronin.achilles@gmail.com requested blocking-firefox3 from the wind on bug 401869.
30. <tymofiy> yes, I do.
31. <lilo> I think it sucks
32. <tymofiy> used it for having older Firefoxen for testing
33. <lilo> it's only a luncher
34. <lilo> read this http://portablefreeware.com/forums/view ... =8371#8371
35. <lilo> Stealth is >> http://portablefreeware.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1688
36. <tymofiy> check out this: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=265020
37. <firebot> tymofiy: Bug 265020 enh, --, ---, nobody@mozilla.org, NEW, "Official" Portable Firefox
38. <lilo> ???
39. <tymofiy> Haler's is already official enough
40. <lilo> nooooo
41. <lilo> see y not http://portablefreeware.com/forums/view ... =8371#8371
42. <lilo> read it
43. <lilo> it is only a wrapper !
44. <lilo> a stink wrapper
45. <lilo> Haler's suck!
46. <lilo> we all TPFC members are hate him!
47. <tymofiy> well, Firefox is already portable by itself, it does need no libraries outside its folder.
48. <lilo> TPFC (the portable freeware collection)
49. <tymofiy> the only question is where it stores your Profile
50. <tymofiy> and you can always specify it with -P switch.
51. <lilo> can i change it somehow to the application folder?
52. <lilo> so i'll go with it on a USB stick
53. <tymofiy> the magic command is firefox -P "e:\firefox\profile"
54. <tymofiy> the the only thing wrapper aka launcher does is getting current dir and issuing that command
55. <lilo> i dont understand?
56. <lilo> aka?
57. <tymofiy> look.
58. <tymofiy> you know what profile is?
59. <lilo> yes!
60. <tymofiy> you put Firefox on USB, you put your Profile on that
61. <tymofiy> you launch Firefox passing it a Parameter : "-P path_to_your_profile"
62. <lilo> but how ff will know that my profile is in the usb and not on the local computer?
63. <lilo> how?
64. <firebot> benjamin@smedbergs.us granted blocking-firefox3 on bug 401850.
65. <firebot> Bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=401850 maj, --, Firefox 3 M9, nobody@mozilla.org, NEW, Unable to save two copies of the same file; unique-filename-generation stuff is broken
66. <lilo> can you email me the instructions?
67. <tymofiy> wait a minute
68. -->| Littlemutt_afk (chatzilla@moz-44DE1BA6.dhcp.embarqhsd.net) has joined #firefox
69. <tymofiy> http://lifehacker.com/software/firefox/ ... 231646.php
70. <tymofiy> that is pretty detailed.
71. <tymofiy> ping me after you read it if you will have questions
72. <lilo> it will not write any other settings history cache or any other traces on the locak pc?
73. <lilo> local* lol
74. <tymofiy> no, cache is also in profile.
75. <tymofiy> and, btw, having Firefox and its cache on USB makes it slow as hel
76. <tymofiy> hell
77. <lilo> wait, let my copy our dialog
78. <lilo> i know
79. <lilo> copied
80. <lilo> thanks
81. <tymofiy> np

now... is it portable (Stealth)

[XPect]

Sound pretty good, I'm testing it actually.

One thing I don't understand is how to specifiy a relative path in the profile directory.

Any Idea ?

Regards

[Simon.T]

I dunno too
this conversation is from the last hour

Here: http://lifehacker.com/software/firefox/ ... 231646.php

thanks for your reply

BTW... talking about profiles

[XPect]

Ok after a few try seem to work:

In the example below, I've created a directory called Firefox at the root of the key that contain a subdirectory \House to store the profile data
The file profile.ini is stored in the Firefox directory

1 - Find the file called profile.ini or create it like this

Code: Select all

[General]
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=House
IsRelative=1
Path=.\House
Default=1

2 - Call firefox like this: firefox.exe -p \Firefox\profile.ini

My bad this is not working, it allways search for profiles.ini in the default location in the user directory...

Regards

[XPect]

After a few search on the net, I don't find a way to specifiy a different path for the file profiles.ini
It's allways stored in the user profile of the session...

Any idea ?

Regards

[lococobra]

~Shakes head slowly back and forth~

I don't think you guys understand... tymofiy from the chat actually told you exactly how to do it.

<tymofiy> the the only thing wrapper aka launcher does is getting current dir and issuing that command

Get autoit and compile this script using AutToExe

Code: Select all

#NoTrayIcon
$FirefoxExe = $ScriptDir & "\App\Firefox.exe"
$ProfileLoc = $ScriptDir & "\Data\Profile\"

Run($FirefoxExe & ' -P "' & $ProfileLoc & '"')

Make sure you change the paths to reflect the correct files

Your folder structure should be:

PortableFirefox.exe (This is the compiled version of the above script)
App/All firefox files
Data/Profile/

When the launcher runs, it will save your profile to '/Data/Profile/'

Make sense?

[nycjv321]

Simon.T YOU FUCKING ROCK! LOL (never checked out firefox switches , im getting to used to GUIs) awesome knowledge to pass around!!! THANK YOU!

[Toxteth O'Grady]

I have no idea what I am doing , but with the "-P" switch it did not work here. Using "-profile" instead did the trick.

[Simon.T]

Simon.T YOU FUCKING ROCK! LOL (never checked out firefox switches , im getting to used to GUIs) awesome knowledge to pass around!!! THANK YOU!

np nycjv321, I'm glad I could help

[mebugnot]

A stupid question (only applicable to Windows users):

Why reinvent the wheel when there's 'Free the Fox' on which portable firefox is based on (read the bottom of the page in http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable)

Just download FreeTheFox v0.3.1 from http://mai9.net/blog/prog/firefox/free-the-fox/ and minutes later you too can be running the latest nightly Firefox 3.0a9 build and your favourite third party build of Firefox (meesa like firefox musume) alongside each other from a UFD*.

Contents of one of the many copies of free the fox.ini I have:

Code: Select all

[Settings]
;Program Folder=FXMus1509
;Program Folder=FFJan26
Program Folder=FFtrunk
;Program Folder=FireFox 2.x
;Program Folder=firefox 3.x cairo musume
;Profile Folder=profile15
;Profile Folder=profile20
;Profile Folder=profile30
Profile Folder=profile30-trunk

One could use the same profile for all, but then one couldn't run multiple copies at the same time. And you'd get nagged a bit every time you switched which version of FF you were running. And a few extensions really do not work very well at all with the latest nightly trunk.


* along with the inherently portable unpacks of VLC, The KMPlayer, Opera(+OperaTor), XMPlay, 7Z, Notepad++, Irfanview, Maxthon, Proxomitron and GWA (not quite as inherent)

[crownixx]

A stupid question (only applicable to Windows users):

Why reinvent the wheel..

Yeah, me curious too..

Simon.T, what tymofiy introduce is the parameter to make firefox portable. Am i right?

Code: Select all

firefox -P "e:\firefox\profile

Then lococobra teach here how to use the parameter, by using a launcher. At the end, we are still using the launcher same as Haller's version

here's some part of Haller's FirefoxPortable.nsi

Code: Select all

LaunchProgramParameters:
StrCpy $EXECSTRING `"$PROGRAMDIRECTORY\$PROGRAMEXECUTABLE" -profile "$PROFILEDIRECTORY" $0`

i'm not make a deep homework but i *think* -P is the same as -profile

mebugnot, thanks for sharing the FreeTheFox. Now we have option to create our own firefox portable easily.

My 2cent, the "Official" we want to create here is similar way with Haller's version. There is nothing wrong to build your own portable but mabye we should look deeper what we can get more in Haller's version

Modifications
I made some modifications to the default version of Firefox to make it more USB key friendly (decreasing the number of writes to the drive, which will increase drive life). These changes are listed here so you'll know what they are, and so you can recreate the process, if so desired. Obviously, you can change many of these settings (ex cache, form saving or cookies disabled) by changing the options in Firefox, but you will increase the number of writes to your flash drive, thus decreasing its life.

-Extension-Friendly Launcher - Firefox Portable Launcher is included. It will alter the paths to any extensions you install to work relatively and cleans up the bits Firefox leaves behind on the local PC.
-Default Profile - A default profile exists within the firefox directory.
No Default Browser Check - Firefox won't check to see if it is the default browser on startup.
-Download Prompt - Firefox will ask where to save downloads.
-Download History Cleared - Download history is cleared on exit.
-Browser History Disabled - The history has been disabled to decrease disk size and the number of writes to the disk, increasing disk life.
-Form Info Saving Disabled - Information from forms is not saved.
-No Disk Cache - The browser disk cache has been disabled to decrease disk size and the number of writes to the disk, increasing disk life.

EDIT:
After reading Free The Fox Readme

*** What's this program for?
Before launching "firefox.exe -p profile", it (always) checks "profile\chrome\chrome.rdf" and updates absolute paths in it...

well, it looks like the same strategy as tymofiy try to tell

*** Does this work pretty much like PortableFirefox?
yes, PFF uses some of my code. Maybe it could be said that I am more geeky, and PFF more user-friendly.

My 2cent is right..

So, back to the irc chat

27. <lilo> do you know firefox portable (by haller)?
.
.
.
31. <lilo> I think it sucks
.
.
.
39. <tymofiy> Haler's is already official enough
.
.
.
47. <tymofiy> well, Firefox is already portable by itself, it does need no libraries outside its folder.
.
.
.
54. <tymofiy> the the only thing wrapper aka launcher does is getting current dir and issuing that command

Conclusion, not all wrapper suck. And sorry to say that we still having the stealh issue.

[xephyr69]

Homepage: http://portableapps.com/news/2008-07-21 ... able_3.0.1
Download: http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

[donald]

just in case you havent been keeping up

March 28 = 3.0.8

April 22 = 3.0.9

April 27 = 3.0.10

An important bug fix.

Is the next update likely to wait until June or later??

Has anyone found FF3 any less effective than the FF2 ??

Sometimes it is slower for me than I believe it should be (launching explorer second and it comes in first sometimes)

$$$$$Anyone in the FF development communities might consider a revision menu if it is feasible (something to turn off new features without losing anything important).

[Napiophelios]

The only thing I like about FFox3 is managing bookmark properties is much easier.
Other than that I think they took a step back as far as usability
...but I think its much safer now which is really their main concern in developement.

I still prefer FFoxV2 or the new Opera 10 Turbo.


I just started using this modified version of FFox3;its called Foxglove.
Its a chrome clone geared towards google applications.
Its pretty cool if you love google services as much as I do.
Direct Download

[castman]

Well, IE 8 got to be really annoying. The first window from IE represents two instances and each new tab/window represents a new instance. It is highly memory consuming and there is no way, I know to turn it off for tabs.

Try switching now from a loading window to a background window, like I always did with IE 7. It has become a disgrace with this release. I am thinking about turning off the new IE feature: accelerators.

Now, I starting to love Firefox 3. Since it is easy to use (it is really true about its contents), safe and lightweight, sure what I think is most important. I am configuring portable firefox with Translation plugin, Language Menu extension and CookieSafe.

One thing I really hate is saving internet sessions. At least to me that's useless, even my sister learned by herself to use the History menu. I will browse now for an way to switch this thing off.

Edit: While looking for answers I found that is easy to do this with Firefox. With IE 8 you have to enable the cleaning of the history in IE exit or disable automatic crash recovery.

And about the IE multiple tab instances, there is nothing to do (Off course if you disconsider hacking).