Firefox Portable

Hi,

I'm using the Firefox Portable Launcher 1.3.1.

In previous versions, you could define in FirefoxPortable.ini a folder on your USB stick where everything that usually goes to %Appdata% is saved instead. In the recent version, this does not work any more.

I know that when you exit Firefox portable, the local folder %Appdata%/Mozilla is deleted. But I think this is not an improvement, because other tools/plugins that you can use with Portable Firefox write data to %Appdata%, too. For example, if there's a piece of flash in a web page, the flash plugin writes data to the folder %Appdata%/Macromedia. These data can contain information similar to what a cookie can contain. I'd prefer these data not to be written to a local folder, but to a folder on my USB stick. Therefore, I'd like to request to bring the old feature back to define "UserProfileDirectory" in FirefoxPortable.ini.

I've seen a few posts and comments concerning the lifespan of flash drives and number of read/writes to them. I've never known that this could be an issue, as I was under the impression that read/write cycles weren't detrimental to a solid-state device. My question now becomes this: With the following list of extensions that I'm using, does anyone think one or some may cause excessive wear on my drive that will shorten the life of it?

• del.icio.us bookmarks (not the older menu one, this one replaces FF bookmarks functionality) (http://del.icio.us/help/firefox/bookmarks/quicktour)

This problem just began happening and I believe is related to a forced update (at work) to WinXP. All of a sudden firefox thinks the drive is readonly and will not run, it asks to copy it locally and run it from there. The message is "Firefox Portable appears to be running from a location that is read-only. Would you like to temporarily copy it to the local hard drive and run it from there?" I have researched this and found that Microsoft uses the read-only attribute on folders internally to specify that a folder has a customized view. I have tried every solution I could find to remedy the situation but none work. The Microsoft knowledge base article is listed here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326549, the fix that they describe does not work. They say that Microsoft and all Microsoft supported apps ignore the read-only flag on folders. I am assuming PortableFirefox checks the read-only attribute on the Data folders to determine if it is being run from a CD? A regular installation of firefox to the local hard drive runs fine and ignores the attribute, but then it is not portable. I am running the latest RC of PortableFirefox 2.0. I have tried reverting back to the previous version I had before but have the same problems.

I think Firefox should provide a mapping that can
be used in a bookmark to refer to the profile directory
in use, which in turn would identify the chrome directory
and the directory above the profile directory and any of
the related files. And another specifically for the cache,
which I think would help with better separation of user
material from temporary data.

I am posting here because I'm sure Firefox Portable
developers can tie in with changes to Firefox and I
see people struggle to find their profile, With a portable application not only does one had to have done that but they also have to deal with the changing of the drive letter on the portable device.

Bookmarks mapping for flash drive changes
at home and for it's portability purpose away from home.

At home the range is usually somewhere between D: and H:
and away from home the range is going to be greater. In
any case it would affect all of the following:

1) home page whether my file or the help file in portablefirefox

2) location of the profile directory in a keyword shortcuts (shortcuturl=)

3) working files on c: at home or copied versions on flash
drive away from home accessed from keyword shortcuts.

4) .BAT file used to copy from home computer to the
flash drive using the same directory names and structure.

I have Firefox at home on my computer and I use it on a thumb drive at school and keep making new bookmarks in each version of the program I keep forgetting which version has a particular bookmark and I can't run them at the same time. Does anyone know how to synchronise the bookmarks between my regular firefox and Firefox portable so that both sets are kept current? Thanks.
Lauri

Is it possible to add any fonts to Firefox Portable.
I did find a font directory but it has some file types that I do not understand. If there is a directory I could manually add i do not mind trying.

Frank D. Hubeny

I just encountered a weird problem with FFP (I am using the 2.0 RC3 version). A search in this forum did not reveal anyone with a similar problem. I would be glad if someone could help me with it.

Following the instructions on the FFP site, I had copied my profile and extensions from the local FF (FF2.0 stable, on my computer) to the FFP Data folder (on my USB drive). And it appeared to work for a while, in that I had all the extensions enabled in my FFP and it ran as desired.

But today, when I started FFP, only the base version of FF loaded without any extension whatsoever! Even after closing the app and rerunning it, I am still getting the base version.

Here is my folder structure:
C:\
- removable (folder)
FirefoxPortable.ini
FirefoxPortable.exe
index.html
+ App (folder)
+ Data (folder)
+ Other (folder)
+ Website (folder)

and here is my FirefoxPortable.ini:

[FirefoxPortable]
FirefoxDirectory=App\firefox
ProfileDirectory=Data\profile
PluginsDirectory=Data\plugins
SettingsDirectory=Data\settings
FirefoxExecutable=firefox.exe
AdditionalParameters=
LocalHomepage=index.html
DisableSplashScreen=true
DisableIntelligentStart=false
AllowMultipleInstances=true
SkipChromeFix=false
SkipCompregFix=false

I ran into the infamous message, "Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system."

I had no trouble starting a single instance of Firefox Portable, but once Firefox was running, if I did something like

Start/Run/k:\Portable\FirefoxPortable.exe http://www.google.com/ig

intending for it to open the link in the existing Firefox window, I got the message. I had set "AllowMultipleInstances=true" in FirefoxPortable.ini.

In *my* case, setting it to "AllowMultipleInstances=false" made the error go away. I was running FP2-RC3. I post this info in case someone else can use the info.