[CLOSED THREAD] Portable Firefox

Discussion of third-party/unofficial Firefox/Thunderbird/SeaMonkey builds.
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BenBasson
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Post by BenBasson »

You should be able to use:
upx *.dll
as a command line. It'll compress all .dll files in the folder.
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CritterNYC
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Post by CritterNYC »

Portable Firefox 0.9 Final available:
http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_firefox/

It is now compressed using the UPX commandline options suggested (upx --best --compress-icons=0 --nrv2d --crp-ms=999999 -k). It is a repackaged version of the Firefox 0.9 ZIP download from mozilla.org. Our size went up 100k by not compressing icons throughout the package.

Please give it a thorough run through its paces and post any comments back to this thread.
Alycobaba
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Post by Alycobaba »

Hey ... playin around with it myself.... how getting ridof the uninstall folder. That's a little over 100k right there!
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CritterNYC
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Post by CritterNYC »

Alycobaba wrote:Hey ... playin around with it myself.... how getting ridof the uninstall folder. That's a little over 100k right there!


Where are you seeing an uninstall file? My ZIP package doesn't contain one.
Alycobaba
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Post by Alycobaba »

Oops... sorry ... I was playing around with the official *.exe installer that creates that folder. You're right, yours doesn't :)
nerbas
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similar .zip-package for Thunderbird?

Post by nerbas »

Thanks for the excellent work! <br><br>Is there a similar project for Thunderbird somewhere? Would be great if I could take it with me too... -nb.
FlashBanG
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Post by FlashBanG »

I was thinking the exact same thing this morning, when I was going over the release notes draft for TB .7

New Profile Manager which also supports running from a USB device.


http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunder ... notes.html

CritterNYC, Cusser, and others participating in this thread, would you all be interested in making a portable ThunderBird build? I know I for one, would like one, and am willing to test it out on my USB drive, if someone volunteers to build.. (John?)

If there's interest, we can start a similar thread in ThunderBird General..

I think we pretty much got the Firefox build nailed down.. not much more we can do with it :-)
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FlashBanG
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Post by FlashBanG »

Whoa.. just noticed a bit of a major bug in the protable builds..

For some reason, by default, the firefox folder, once unzipped, is set as READ-ONLY, as are all the subfolders and files.

This would be fine, except that to install extensions, or themes, or even write cookies to the profile, or change config settings, we must have write access to the folders.

I tried to change the file attributes by unticking Read-Only, but for some weird reason, it wont let me.. I 've tried it numerous times, unchecking READ-ONLY, clicking Apply, then OK, but when i look at the properties, again, read-only is still checked..

John, can you make the zip builds without read-only being checked by default? I cant seem to get past this problem.. It wont let me change the readonly attribute..

Anyone else experience this?
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Racer
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Post by Racer »

Is there an option to make it run off of write-protected media, like a CDR?
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CritterNYC
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Post by CritterNYC »

FlashBanG wrote:Whoa.. just noticed a bit of a major bug in the protable builds..

For some reason, by default, the firefox folder, once unzipped, is set as READ-ONLY, as are all the subfolders and files.

This would be fine, except that to install extensions, or themes, or even write cookies to the profile, or change config settings, we must have write access to the folders.

I tried to change the file attributes by unticking Read-Only, but for some weird reason, it wont let me.. I 've tried it numerous times, unchecking READ-ONLY, clicking Apply, then OK, but when i look at the properties, again, read-only is still checked..

John, can you make the zip builds without read-only being checked by default? I cant seem to get past this problem.. It wont let me change the readonly attribute..

Anyone else experience this?


That isn't an issue with the build or the zip. It's an issue with your setup. Most likely, something is up with the way windows recognizes your drive and has it as read-only. If you can't change it to NOT be readonly yourself, that's your confirmation. Try extracting the ZIP to your hard drive and check it.
FlashBanG
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Post by FlashBanG »

CritterNYC:

Must be.. i got it working now, somehow.. It didnt recursively mark folders as not read only, so i had to manually go and do that..

2 other questions for you:

1) Does Firefox 0.9 not come bundled with a help file by default? or did you take the help file stuff out of the build?


2) The post about portable thunderbird must have gotten mixed up in all this, but do you have any interest in making a mobile thunderbird build like the firefox one?


Thanks for your time :-)
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r_marsch
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Post by r_marsch »

I hate to say it, but I feel that 0.8 is the better solution for me at present. I have spent the better part of today trying to get 0.9 working properly on my thumb drive. My deepest thanks to Cusser. Until I tried his version I couldn't get 0.9 to work at all. I am to dependant on extensions to do without them. I tried the relative verses absolute paths solution, but my rdf files did not contain anything new in them after I tried to install an extension (ad block). Oddly the extensions.rdf showed to be modified in file details. I also tried drive substitution and a few other minor hacks but no go. I read a lot of the other postings on the forums and it seems that 0.9 is just not ready for prime time. Not that I'm complaining. I still think FF kicks IE's butt royally. I intend to try to slim 0.8 down using some of the techniques applied to 0.9. Perhaps Cusser will host a 0.8 version at his site if I get it working well enough.
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CritterNYC
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Post by CritterNYC »

FlashBanG wrote:1) Does Firefox 0.9 not come bundled with a help file by default? or did you take the help file stuff out of the build?


I didn't remove anything from the official 0.9 ZIP. Perhaps it isn't included in the ZIP build.

FlashBanG wrote:2) The post about portable thunderbird must have gotten mixed up in all this, but do you have any interest in making a mobile thunderbird build like the firefox one?


I was actually thinking about doing it. I should have some time tomorrow to package it.
sheehan
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Post by sheehan »

I am using Critters portable with a couple of extensions and customizations, but I can't get it seamless.
trying to hack away at a solution here - messed with my chrome and extension rdfs and still running into two small issues. Everything else looks smooth, but I still end up with two folders in my hard drives APPDATA folder - Mozilla (with just one file - pluginreg) and a Talkback folder.
How do I disable Talkback & what component is creating the Mozilla folder?
edit: Thanks in advance
FlashBanG
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Post by FlashBanG »

CritterNYC:

Let me know when you have a beta up, i'll be glad to test it.


Sheehan:

What OS are you on? Are you running FireFox using the batch file? or are you clicking on the direcct program link? Unless you run it from the batch file every time, it will create a profile in the APPDATA directory.
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