i'm new at all this, but i've been running portable chrome off a flash drive for a couple months. i used to run portable firefox, but i find chrome much faster and less prone to crashing. my issue is that i can't keep track of when plugins/extensions/'whatever they're called' need updating! i try to open a PDF and i get an error- my adobe is out of date, i can't update it on the work computer cause i dont have admin access. so then i try and update on my home computer. except, portable chrome just uses the files from my computer (instead of the updating the missing portable files). so how do i go about updating my plugins/extensions/'whatever' on my portable drive from my home computer?
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Google Chrome Portable will use the plug-ins you have installed automatically. Most plug-ins are installed locally by the application that owns them, so the only way to update the plug-in is by updating that app.
The only plug-ins I know you can keep and update in your flash drive are Flash and Java.
Previously known as kAlug.
yes- and those are the 2 that i'm struggling to update. because they update my hard drive chrome, not my flash drive chrome.
-ashley
It's not an issue of the plugin being out of date, it's thr full app installed locally that needs updating. The 'plugin' in chrome is just a link to the local app.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Not sure I agree with that.. I believe the following directories have something to do with plugins:
GoogleChromePortable/App/Chrome-bin/Plugins/
GoogleChromePortable/App/Chrome-bin/Plugins/bin
GoogleChromePortable/App/Chrome-bin/Plugins/lib
I also don't believe Windows supports linking files, so there'd have to be a local copy someplace.
Plus, what use would a portable app be if none of the plugins remained portable with it.
I need to do a bit of research into this, but I believe you should be able to at least install all plugins to a portable device, even if they get installed someplace else.
What you're thinking of standalone plugins are not. The only standalone plugin is flash. Everything else - adobe reader, quicktime, etcc - are just a few DLLs that serve solely to link up to the installed app. They are not standalone. They are not portable. They rely on the locally installed app.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
John- what you're saying is that my portable edition of Chrome isn't really portable at all, since it needs Chrome installed locally on my hard drive in order to use the dll from the hard drive install app. This seems counter-intuitive.
My issue with portable Chrome (as simply as I can make it)is this: my 'Java' plugin (found by running about:plugins) is out of date. I can't click the 'Download Critical Security Update' while on the current computer because the install will fail without admin privileges. Once I get to a computer I have admin privileges at, my plugin is no longer out of date, because Chrome reads the plugin location from my locally installed version of Chrome. I'm having the same issue with the Google Earth Plugin. I have the updated version of all these plugins on my local version and I can copy them into the portable files. I just need to know can I tell Chrome where to run the plugin from? Instead of Chrome auto updating?
-ashley
Chrome is just fine portably. Your plugins are not nor are the actual apps that they rely on to provide functionality. This works the same for all portable browsers including Opera, Maxthon, Firefox, and SeaMonkey.
Most plugins are not standalone plugins, they are simple bridges to the locally-installed apps that provide the actual functionality. You have no control over this nor do we. Chrome provides no facility at all to redirect where to look for plugins. Overall, most plugins are pretty useless in that respect and you're better off just having the browser launch the local app anyway.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!