I have a portable version of Chromium on my USB drive, I'm specifically using the XChromium version.
This is working absolutely great, there is a black branded theme and a proxy application included.
Often if I try this USB drive on some of my test PCs then Avast (or probably any other AV client) will try to install a browser extension.
I'd like to to prevent it from installing any other extensions. This product will be used by folks with limited IT knowledge (and English) and I want to minimise complexity.
The browser is set to destroy itself when finished, and rebuild a fresh copy from a zip file in just 30 seconds.
I asked this on some of the Chrome/Chromium forums but they are not so keen on supporting portable versions.
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We don't make or support X-Chromium. It's made by the folks over at WinPenPack.
Chromium Portable is an unofficial PortableApps.com Format release that will likely be made official and supported in the near future: http://crportable.sourceforge.net/
One note on distribution: The X-Chromium launcher includes the closed source AutoIT EXE within that may have redistribution restrictions. I know it's not open source, but it is freeware with a relatively permissive proprietary license if I recall correctly.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Are you sure you need a portable "Chromium"? or would a portable "Google Chrome" be good enough?
Because there's an official Google Chrome Portable here.
If you're certain you want Chromium and not Google Chrome you should try Chromium Portable.
It's made by one of the PortableApps.com developers (Aluísio A. S. G), works well in my experience, and if you create a file named
ChromiumPortable.inicontaining the following linealongside
ChromiumPortable.exeit "Runs the portable application in a read-only mode." which means that it "copies the user's data to a temporary directory on the host computer, runs the application, and then deletes it afterwards, leaving nothing behind. ''As a consequence of this technique, any changes made during the Live mode session aren't saved back to the device.''" (quotes excerpted from Chromium Portable's includedHelp.html. AlsoIIRCtheRunLocallyoption isn't officially supported any more, but still works Google Chrome Portable too.)Hope one of those works for you.
Edit: Just re-read John T. Haller's post and noticed that he'd already mentioned Chromium Portable. Oh well, I think the info about RunLocally still added to the conversation.
~3D1T0R