My employer gave us new computers and took away administrator rights. While they did install Google Chrome for us (and IE 8), they have blocked all extensions and plugins, even Flash. So I bought myself a fast USB, and installed Portable Google Chrome on this USB. Using my home computer, I got it all set up. However, when I ran Portable Google Chrome off my work computer, it still is not downloading or allowing me to run my extensions/plugins, claiming they are blocked. Is there some way I can do this with portable chrome, as that was the reason I got it?
Unlike a self-contained browser like Firefox, Chrome is very OS-tied. Even the settings and extensions are locked to an individual PC now and will only carry over if you login to Google. Think of Chrome as closer to IE than to Firefox. If you want a browser you'll be able to fully use on that PC, Firefox Portable is likely your best bet.
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Many of the computers in schools and workplaces do not have Flash pre-installed so if you need Flash or want your extensions you either need to use Google Chrome and deal with the problems mentioned before or use Firefox and not be able to use Flash. The reason I switched to Chrome is because I was unable to install Flash on the school computers. Chrome is a bit too bloated and resource wasteful for my taste and it is a pain to have to sign in every time I start it AND I lose all my browser cookies, which defeats the purpose of having a portable browser. If Firefox supported built in Flash, I would go back in an instant.
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Thanks everyone for your help the other week. I did install USB Firefox and it is OK; at work, it won't log into gmail claiming certificate errors, and on a lot of sites, it won't download the graphics. On my home network, it does all this fine.
I did get our IT folks to remove the Google Chrome from my computer. However, despite that, the USB Chrome still can't install any extensions.
So thanks for everyone for your help.