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Portable Firefox and Thunderbird
RHLJay writes "-For the Road Warrior on the Go-
If you have a laptop, desktop, and/or work PC keeping the information from Firefox and Thunderbird
sync'd with each other is hard, not to mention the extensions. Not anymore - John Haller has packaged both Firefox and Thunderbird into 'Flash drive friendly' executables which can be run directly from a USB flash drive. Visit his site for more info. Portable Firefox and Portable Thunderbird."
This is damn handy when you're trying to patch/clean a spyware riddled machine. Sometimes it's almost impossible to get stuff working with so much crap clogging up the browser. This thing is uber useful, IMHO.
Why did I have to read half the page to figure out what version of FireFox/ThunderBird he had packaged though ?? (of course it's windows, I wonder why I even wondered, duh)
OTOH I suppose it's easier to find a random Windows PC than a real computer nowadays... (gratuitious flaimbait, I know)
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Why do I have this bad habit? Because I first started using flash drives on Win98SE, and those manufacturer's drivers always flushed the data to the drive when available. I could unplug them the moment the drive actvity led stopped flashing. When I "eject" the flash drive from 2K, I can see Windows do a final file access to it before telling me it's safe to disconnect. Leaves me really wondering what happens to data in the drive when I get a power failure or BSoD before an eject.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If you need to use both a web browser and an email client on a regular basis in multiple locations, then you don't need these customized builds, there is already something around for you, it's called Mozilla. Maybe some of you recent Firefox-from-IE converts have never used Mozilla or think it reminds you of Netscape (Firefox reminds me of IE). Give it a chance though. It allows you to use roaming profiles which is exactly what this article is about. You also aren't wasting your system resources like you are when you run Thunderbird and Firefox at the same time. You generally save over 30MB of RAM by just running the Mozilla Application Suite. This is because you only have one instance of the Gecko engine running instead of two. Oh, and you can plop Mozilla right onto a flash drive from the zip file builds available from the Mozilla.org Foundation.
HOW TO: Disable the Use of USB Storage Devices in Windows XP
Read the whole article, it mentions several hacks that apply not just to XP. Also note: you're probably going to need Admin access to modify the file permissions or registry settings to bring it back.
John
Probably not many, but those that do would be the same ones who would be confused by the error page in the listings.
or even better don't try to make an end run around IT at work, eventually it will show up in some sort of log or management console, or someone from IT will walk by with you running firefox. Then you can tell HR how clever you are as they kick your ass to the curb, if IT are assclowns and force everyone to use IE and that causes a virus or spyware problem then IT looks bad, if you run firefox off your thumb drive then you look like a security risk or a "rebel" and you are likely to get canned. Personally I love Firefox and hate iexplode, but not enough to risk getting fired over. (unless of course your job really blows and you want to get fired)
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
mod parent up. I work for military and the only approved browser is exploder. I would say a good portion of my group uses firefox at home and we all have admin access to our machines due to our roles so installing is no problem and in our cases we are not being audited for software (yet). However we can get a security sweep done of our office at a moments notice and that would be pretty much job termination, none of us are stupid enough to risk our jobs for it.
Hi, I use it every once in a while.
.ini file you can really put it everywhere.
It liberated me from taking my laptop with me when I visit geek friends (there is always a free laptop I can use).
Also, if I am in an emergency and need to read email etc. I use my usb drive that I always carry. Webmail and simply using somebody's else computer are not an option with me as I need to use ssh to forward ports, both for my private email (that I host at home) and my work email/intranet.
Having said that, it is a little bit slow, although it may be because it is reading from a flash drive, but I can wait.
They should be documented a little bit better. For instance, they tell you that you can only install it in the main directory of the drive, but if you simply change the
I have not figured out how to handle multiple profiles though.
All in all, I am very happy with it.THANKS!
Must be a slow news day. I've been using the standard builds of both Firefox and Thunderbird on a portable USB drive since 0.1. All the Portable Firefox project does is to optimise builds for this (e.g.: low disk usage). Anyway, the portable Firefox project has been around since June and has been mentioned on /. before.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
I've considered switching, but my flatbed scanner is vital to the work I do on my home computer, and SANE lists it as unsupported.
* begin windows hardware rant *
Funny you mention that. I have the opposite problem. My dad has collected a bunch of older equipment. A year old scanner, an older style webcam, and one of the first PCI audio boards.
NONE of them work properly with windows anymore. The scanner does not register as a scanner to anything except the only application that came with it. Not a single program can use the acquire function. The webcam -- the drivers work, but apparently they have some kind of a bug, since the camera produces a much better image quality in linux. The audio board does not have a working microphone or sound out in XP or 2000. He has to change them to get them to work again. THIS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU. This happens much slower in open source since it takes only one interested person with skill to continue the work, and if it there is not enough interest, one can be generated for a price of a beer (for a small enough update). A company can not be persuaded, since it does not care about you, and the only thing it will gain is a lost sale because you would upgrade to a new device.
I would have never thought I would say this in this stage of linux development, but "Windows hardware support sucks totally" to the point where if something is not Windows (your version here, including language specific stuff -- had a device that came with english only drivers, and another language version of windows did not accept it) certified, it can be assumed not to work.
So my advice to you. If the scanner is the only reason you are on windows -- it is not a good enough reason. You will probably end up upgrading your scanner at the next version of windows, unless microsoft is kind enough to get a generic driver for it out. In which case you will lose some kind of an option that the original driver had. Like maybe 600dpi support because the generic driver is not aware of this feature on your version.
The only good thing about this is that I get the hardware.
*end hardware and windows rant *
CartoonNetwork.com's Codename: Kids Next Door game to work
Not a good enough reason. There is no need to couple that with the browser. Either produce a standalone program, or allow something that is actually sandboxed. One can argue that an activex is just like a standalone, but I will disagree if only due to layman's understanding of how software works.
Most of the people you call "masochists" can't afford a one-seat license for Microsoft Visual Studio.
That was a sideways question. They are masochists not because they are using MS Internet Update Explorer for updating the machine, but because they are using the Internet Update Explorer for browsing the net, a thing it does not do well. Luckily there are things actually designed to browse the internet nowdays.
The reason why I mentioned the activex testbox program is not because I wish to avoid IE, but to demonstrate how epsilon its actual involvement is. Actually I think the updater activex uses IE to render some of its interface (via external server), so it can not be run standalone. Furthermore I think that the activex testbox came with the VSS ActiveX developer edition, which IIRC was free.
Summary: Most of the people who use IE, do not do it for the activeX, and those who do are quickly conditioned to answer no. Most things out there use flash or java anyway.
So the answer is a simple one: If I go to an aboriginal island, and show them how to make something they desire using a suboptimal method, they will use that method. No amount of advertisement can ever change their minds. They need to actually be shown a better way. Strangely, the same thing happens, which I call an old fogey syndrome. Basically, people who have used the old method start criticizing the new one. The call everyone whippersnappers, and tell them that real
badness 10000