Portable Firefox 1.5 Released

John T. Haller's picture
Submitted by John T. Haller on December 8, 2005 - 6:59am

Portable Firefox 1.5 has been released.  New in this version is:

  • An update to Firefox 1.5 Final (with all the new features)
  • Compatibility with nearly all extensions when switching computers
  • Enhanced detection of multiple browser instances
  • Automatic repair of some common profile issues
  • Automatic updates via the Firefox 1.5 updater
  • A splash screen for instant feedback

Get it from the new Portable Firefox homepage hosted on the just launched PortableApps.com!

Story Topic:

Comments

John T. Haller. One of my personal heroes. lol.

I discovered portable firefox quite a while ago throught FireFox's StumbeUpon toolbar and was instantly hooked. My school only uses IE and Netscape, so it's great having these on my Thumbdrive and Portable HardDrive too. You got me hooked on apps that can run from my Thumbdrive, and I'm very glad to see this new site you've created dedicated to portable apps. Keep up the great work, and I'm looking forward to some of the new apps you've been hinting at on the MozillaZine forums. The Site looks great!

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Posted in Mozilla PowerSkunk. Other Browsers run in fear!
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I love portable Firefox because I don't have administrative priviledges at work.

However, the flash screen that was added seems completely unnecessary. I know I'm using portable firefox. You don't have to tell me again, AND delay the program from opening. Please junk this, or at least explain how to get rid of it manually.

Otherwise, absolutely NO complaints.

John T. Haller's picture

which is it's primary purpose... running from external device. When run from a slower thumbdrive, for instance over USB 1.1... Portable Firefox can take a solid minute to open from when you click. Without the splash, there would be absolutely no indication that anything was happening. The splash doesn't delay the app start at all. It comes up just before the profile starts being processed by the launcher and stays up for 2 seconds after it is done. It can be clicked to be hidden at ANY time. And it can be turned off by using an INI file. (Check the readme.txt in the PortableFirefoxCode directory).

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

I know this is an old post, but I just wanted to mention that I created a PortableFirefox.ini file in the launcher directory with just:

[PortableFirefox]
DisableSplashScreen=true

and it was ignored. When I copied the complete example ini file over it worked.

Launching PFF from my USB2.0 memory stick both at home and at work is significantly quicker than the hard drive installation (which has more extensions). I'm not a big fan of splash screens, and while I fully understand the reasons for including it, I would prefer a toggle in the options dialog to disable it.

Apart from that, it's near perfect! Many thanks.

One of the best things I like about firefox and portable firefox is the huge range of extensions for it.

It means I can take round a download manager, a portable storage program a peer to peer client, a weather viewer, plus tons more!!

Plus you don't have to worry about logging into websites or leaving you password behind!

Overall...FANTASTIC!!!:smile:

I have an archived copy of PFF 1.04; If I moved the splash and the new launcher over to the 1.04 version (it has some extensions I'm missing a lot... Sad ), would it work the same as with 1.5 (the splash capability)?

Ryan McCue's picture

Yep but no need to copy the jpg
Its stored inside the launcher
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R McCue

"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."

Could anyone enlighten me as to the differences between Portable Firefox and FireFox for U3 drives?

Can Portable FF run on a usb drive without needing to be installed or putting ?.dlls etc all over the c: drive, and without leaving any other trace on the host PC?

John T. Haller's picture

It runs entirely from a single directory on any drive you choose. My U3 version works the same way (but from within the U3 Launchpad). Please address other questions to the support forum rather than story comments.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!