Is it possible to setup Firefox Portable on a USB stick, then copy that directory to a DVD-R, and run it successfully from there? Or does it have to be able to write somewhere?
New: Kanri (Oct 9, '24), Platform 29.5.3 (Jun 27, '24)
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has all the info you want in it. Here is where you'll find the procedure for running Firefox Portable from a CD.
And on that same page is the following:
"Read/Write Required - Both the Firefox directory and the Profile directory must be writeable on the USB drive. Drives with a writable switch can not be in read-only mode."
So, it at least looked to me like it says it works in one place, and doesn't just a couple paragraphs later.
Which paragraph should I believe?
Read that one carefully.
This paragraph is extra for the very special case when someone needs to run it from CD.
Under normal circumstances, the other paragraph are valid.
But if you set it up so it is run from CD, then the app is copied to tem dir of the host and run from there (it needs to rewrite this and that during the operation).
The final place where the app is running from needs to be write enabled, which in this case the temp folder of the host definitely is.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
SO you're still not really running from the CD, you're just setting it up to automatically copy the app to the host machine - which is part of what I'm trying to avoid. To be allowed to do this I have to show I'm not affecting the host machine in any way. And I'd prefer not to "cheat" and copy and then run Eraser so you can't SEE the affect.
Can I presume from all this I'm just SOL?
But think that this is an internet browser. This needs for its work to write informations somewhere during its work. It could be put into big ramdrive sure, this would need to make sure we have enough ram and this needs to be alocated to it. Life CD operating systems do work this way, but here you boot into ir and create big ramdrive where all that 'scratch pad' writing is done. If you should do something like that under windows, hmm don't think there is sensible way of doing it. If you have all on usb stick, well essential writes can go there, thought it is very slow, but works. If all is on CD there must be some reserved and accessible space for such software to write to some temporary data. Creating ram drive under windows is possible, but drivers need to be activated for it. So writing to temp folder is ok, the data needs only to be removed by the app at the end.
Or do you have other suggestion how big and powerful software like web browser should work?
>To be allowed to do this I have to show I'm not affecting the host machine in any way.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland