You are here

Installed Software OVERWRITES portable data

4 posts / 0 new
Last post
AntiVirGear
AntiVirGear's picture
Offline
Last seen: 3 years 6 months ago
Joined: 2017-05-08 15:44
Installed Software OVERWRITES portable data

In a nutshell;

using FF or TB portable on a machine with FF or TB installed mess up with my profile... again...
and I'm slowly doubting the name "portable" if two far far away path are messing up eachother (or more my portable profile)
C:\Users\XYZ\Appdata\Roaming\Firefox\... VS P:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\Data\profile

So... now what? Definitely making backups every time after closing, because,

1. WHO do that?
and 2. This will take a long time...
(3. Shouldn't that happen after all?)

Now, some Info:
PortableApps is installed on an exFAT Partition next to a NTFS Partition on an external HDD

lunghd
Offline
Last seen: 5 years 9 months ago
Joined: 2019-02-02 15:21
"me too"

Came here searching for anyone else having this kind of crap happen.

Had a clean, fresh install of FF Portable overwritten by a PC's established installation of FF the first time it was used. PC is running Win7x64 Ultimate although that shouldn't make any difference.

All was well for a while. Installed & checked it out on my home pc. Went to a few websites (college log in page etc etc) then installed the WhatsApp helper and U-Block origin add-ons. A few moments later I glanced up and ALL of the bookmarks from my PC installation were installed on the portable install... along with every single add-on from my home PC.
Not just one or two... all of them. What was really fun was feverishly trying to close tabs while every single one of my home PC's FireFox add-ons busily installed themselves afresh into the portable FF install.

Obviously 'portable' is only portable if you never connect it to a computer with FireFox already on it!

Since it didn't wipe out the bookmarks I had added to the portable installation having my own info update like this would be ok assuming I never want to use the portable installation anywhere but on my own pc... but that was kinda the point: having a safe, portable install that I could put some of my school related bookmarks on along with a couple of email addresses in the Tbird installation.

Now I have to wonder what happens when if I/you/anyone goes to the local library, or school computer lab?

Suppose someone there has bookmarked all of their kiddy p*rn sites on a computer using FireFox? Are all of those bookmarks going to end up on my portable installation where they may contaminate my home pc's install after class?

Other way around: I have to assume that all of my data (including passwords) are accessible from the jump drive now and may be left behind on the school PC... meaning the portable versions can't be used safely at school.

John T. Haller
John T. Haller's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 hours 20 min ago
AdminDeveloperModeratorTranslator
Joined: 2005-11-28 22:21
Launching

If you launch Firefox using either firefox.exe, a taskbar pin you created yourself, or an association (HTML, URL, link from other app, etc), it will run in local mode using the local profile within APPDATA. If you run FirefoxPortable.exe directly or from the PA.c Platform, it will run in portable mode. Note that some changes to the FirefoxPortable.ini can alter this behavior like MultipleInstances (which isn't supported or recommended for regular use).

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

ocdwhatif
Offline
Last seen: 3 years 7 months ago
Joined: 2019-03-13 07:01
I copied my non platform

I copied my non platform Firefox portable profile to the platform Firefox portable, will everything still work ok?

Log in or register to post comments