Well, at my school running FirefoxPortable.exe is blocked, however I'm still able to run firefox.exe, I was just wondering if there would be any drawbacks to running that directly, like if it might take away some of the portable aspects?
Well, sorry for the stupid question, but thanks for anyone that helps!
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Running firefox.exe takes away *ALL* of the portable aspects.
Some folks have renamed FirefoxPortable.exe to IExplorer.exe. But, I don't recommend using any portable apps on systems you're not allowed to (say, work or school if it's banned). Even though they don't leave any personal bits behind, all apps leave stuff in C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch. And all can be detected with network analysis (unless, possibly, you change the browser's useragent with the extension). Both of these warnings apply to U3 and Ceedo, too.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
So, does that mean it will leave files behind and things like that?
And on a side note, I'm not really too worried about getting in trouble for it, at worst, if I get caught using it, they'll warn me not to use it again, besides, I'm great at playing dumb, I can always say something along the lines of "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know it wasn't allowed, it won't happen again..."
Edit: Also, I've tried changing FirefoxPortable.exe's name, and it still gets blocked...
None of the portable apps leave files or registry entries behind. But, due to the way XP's prefetch works, traces are kept by the operating system itself. These can not be avoided. And you can't remove them unless you're an administrator. This applies to any piece of software run from any device in any way.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Wait... when you said that running firefox.exe rather than FirefoxPortable.exe, takes away all portable aspects of FirefoxPortable... doesn't that mean it would leave files behind, other than just the prefetch... or something?
Is exactly the same as running firefox.exe from a regular install of firefox. Nothing at all is portable. Your profile ends up in C:\Documents and Settings. Etc etc etc. You *HAVE* to use the launcher for it to be portable.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Ok, got it, thanks for clarifying that, so then how might I overcome the block on FirefoxPortable, seeing as renaming it doesn't have much of an effect, or would it be wise not to worry about it, and just stick with crappy 'ol Internet Explorer?
Isn't the real problem here that only certain EXE names are allowed to run, blocking all others? (since renmaing to a random name does not work)
This would mean that, since firefox.exe runs, Firefox is allowed to be used...
Well, basically the only EXEs that get blocked are ones that they have trouble with a lot of students using, other than that you're allowed to pretty much run anything, and I guess they felt the need to block FirefoxPortable.exe but not firefox.exe...
VLCPortable and GimpPortable work just fine.
You could just rename PortableFirefox.exe notepad.exe or something like that. Your school wouldn't block notepad. But if it does, try iexplore.exe or explorer.exe or rundll.exe or any other system program. But if they don't block firefox.exe, it's probably either an oversight or some computers actually have Firefox on them.
English && programming !mix
English && programming !mix