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Portable Firefox and Thunderbird

Posted by michael on from the handy-stuff dept.

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."

4 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. Hot damn by wcitechnologies · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This is awesome on a number of levels.

    As a computer technician, there have been several times where I have been prevented from getting a vital file off the internet when trying to repair somebody's computer. Usually this is because IE has become a spyware infested rathole.

    If I had the ability to carry a browser with me, use it, download files, etc. without even having to install anything, hot damn, that'd save some time.

    --
    Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
  2. Looks pretty handy... by eeg3 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Plus with all the modifications they did for Firefox, such as Download History Cleared, Browser History Disabled, Form Info Saving Disabled, No Disk Cache, and No permanent cookies... it won't take up a very large footprint. Mind you, Firefox installed only takes up a meager 8.6Mb.

    Thunderbird on the other hand compresses EXEs and DLLs with UPX. They also recompressed the JAR files (which are ZIP files).

  3. Paradigm by j1bb3rj4bb3r · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I would like to see this done for many different apps (browser, email, IM, blah blah), basically anything that requires user preferences... package a small binary and the preferences together such that they can run off the USB drive. With more and more people owning/working with multiple machines, this would be really useful.

    --
    *yawn*
  4. Cool, but.. by TheTomcat · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This is cool, but I currently have the following setups, and I keep them pretty well in sync:

    Laptop - Linux (Primary Work)

    Laptop - Win (Primary Play)

    Desktop - Win (home)
    Admittedly, I have to keep my extensions in sync, but to keep data, here's what I do:

    For Thunderbird

    • I use only IMAPS, and keep everything on my server
    • I don't use the integrated Junk Mail controls. I did for a while, but got sick of having to start from scratch with every wipe of windows/every new install; nor do I use the filters in my mail client
    • I do, instead, use procmail and spamassassin to accomplish similar results. Spamassassin "learns" from INBOX.Junk.confirmed, every night. Procmail filters my list subscriptions, and I use this tip to keep Thunderbird in line.

    For Firefox:
    • I don't keep any bookmarks, locally, except my live bookmarks (which, again, admittedly, I need to set up on each instance).
    • Instead, I use my del.icio.us account to manage these. I then subscribe to my account's RSS as a live bookmark, and dump that into my bookmarks toolbar. This may be helpful, if you'd like to do the same.

    So with these little tricks, I'm able to keep all three environments pretty much in sync. I know, this isn't for everyone -- I don't expect everyone to have 200+MB of IMAP space, or do I expect them to know how to write procmail rules, but it works for me.

    S