Guys
Thanks to John, I'm just getting into the wonderful world of portable apps and have got a nice chunky environment working on my 4GB USB drive. However, in passing, I've just noticed one small possible glitch affecting Firefox Portable and am wondering if it's me being stupid or a real happening.
As we all know, the Location Bar will do a google "I'm Feeling Lucky search" if you type in a URL portion. For example, typing in "digitalspy" takes you directly to www.digitalspy.co.uk. However, when I try this using Portable Firefox, it does not work.
Instead of the normal 'Looking up' prompt in the status bar, it just simply says "waiting digitalspy" and then times out with a network access "can't find website" message. This occurs with a 'straight out of the box'copy of PF (Portapps Application Suite or direct download from the Portapps application page), with no add-ons installed.
My main suspect is that, at the time, PF was using a proxy to get to the net via a networked (and fairly locked down) business PC which has never had FF installed). Conversely, when I moved it to a non-networked PC and selected "direct connection to the net", everything worked as expected. Just to totally confuse matters the Location Bar Keyword Goggle search IS working in the proxy environment e.g. type "google digitalspy" and it takes you straight to the google results page for "digitalspy"
It's hardly earthshattering but I'm curious as to why the goggle 'Lucky Search' isn't working in the proxy environment - anyone got any thoughts??
SimpleSimon
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When you moved Portable FF to a "non-networked" PC, I assume you mean one with a internet connection, but not on the corporate LAN, like a home cable modem or the like. It's obvious to get Google to search for anything you need an internet connection of some sort so I'm just trying to clarify that fact.
I just tried to search for something using the search engine drop box in both portable FF and normal FF and it worked fine for me. I'm NOT on a corporate LAN and squid isn't running at this time so I'm proxy-less too.
I'm not 100% certain I know where this "location bar" is in FF. There's the address text box and the search engine text box. Where is this "location bar"?
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
Sorry, I should have been a bit clearer:
1) Yes, I meant a standalone PC with an internet connection (bog-standard dial-up, in this case)
2) I meant that bar where you can enter URL's, not the bar where you can use the search engine dropdown - I've always called it the Location Bar but I guess Address Bar or Address text box are just as good.
In the meantime, I've experimented a bit more and the situation has got even stranger!
In the networked, proxy environment, if I type in "digitalspy", as I said, it doesn't do an "I'm Feeling Lucky search" and doesn't return the URL http://www.digitalspy.co.uk
Conversley, if I do this on the non-proxied, internet-connected standalone PC, it does return this URL and takes you that page.
**BUT** in the networked, proxy environment, if I type in "digital spy" it does return this URL and takes you to this page i.e. the look-up doesn't work if you type it in as one word but does work if you type it in as two words!!
You can see exactly the same effect by typing "wikipedia" and "wiki pedia" - the former dooesn't perform the URL look-up whilst the latter does and takes you straight to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Flipping heck, I'm confused
Sounds like you're on a network that has a filtering proxy or content-control software like Websense, Dan's Guardian, squidGuard, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websense
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content-control_software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Content_Control_Software
Of course, my guess may be wrong...but to me it sounds like words are being filtered and hence no request is going out since you get no reply. The other two words make it past the filter and Google returns a result since that's the #1 website for "digital spy" too.
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
Yep, you're quite correct, the network uses Websense as their content-filtering tool.
I guess I hadn't pegged this as a possible cause because it lets me access the digitalspy web site with no protest whatsoever!
It's definitely weird, though. I could just about believe that "digitalspy" is a word to be filtered but "wikipedia"??
Ah well, unless we have a Websense expert on the forum, I guess it's destined to be one of life's little unsolved mysteries
Simon