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175 lines
8.9 KiB
175 lines
8.9 KiB
4 years ago
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Firefox Portable Launcher
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=========================
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Copyright 2004-2017 John T. Haller of PortableApps.com
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Website: http://PortableApps.com/FirefoxPortable
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This software is OSI Certified Open Source Software.
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OSI Certified is a certification mark of the Open Source Initiative.
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This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
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modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
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as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
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of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
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This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
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but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
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MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
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GNU General Public License for more details.
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You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
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along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
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Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
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ABOUT FIREFOX PORTABLE
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======================
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The Firefox Portable Launcher allows you to run Firefox from a removable drive
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whose letter changes as you move it to another computer. The browser and the
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profile can be entirely self-contained on the drive and then used on any Windows
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computer. Specific configuration changes are made to the chrome.rdf so that
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your extensions will still work as the drive letter changes.
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LICENSE
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=======
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This code is released under the GPL. Within the FirefoxPortableSource directory
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you will find the code (FirefoxPortable.nsi) as well as the full GPL license
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(License.txt). If you use the launcher or code in your own product, please give
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proper and prominent attribution.
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INSTALLATION / DIRECTORY STRUCTURE
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==================================
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By default, the program expects the following directory structure:
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-\ <--- Directory with FirefoxPortable.exe
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+\App\
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+\firefox\
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+\Data\
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+\profile\
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+\settings\
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+\plugins\ (optional)
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The above files may also be placed in a FirefoxPortable directory with the
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FirefoxPortable.exe launcher a directory above that.
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It can be used in other directory configurations by including the FirefoxPortable.ini
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file in the same directory as FirefoxPortable.exe and configuring it as detailed in
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the INI file section below.
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FIREFOXPORTABLE.INI CONFIGURATION
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=================================
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The Firefox Portable Launcher will look for an ini file called FirefoxPortable.ini
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within its directory. If you are happy with the default options, it is not necessary,
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though. There is an example INI included with this package to get you started within
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the Other\Source directory. Note that it will not work from this location as it must
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be placed in the same directory as FirefoxPortable.exe. The INI file is formatted as
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follows:
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[FirefoxPortable]
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FirefoxDirectory=App\firefox
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ProfileDirectory=Data\profile
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SettingsDirectory=Data\settings
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PluginsDirectory=Data\plugins
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FirefoxExecutable=firefox.exe
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AdditionalParameters=
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LocalHomepage=
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WaitForFirefox=false
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DisableSplashScreen=false
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AllowMultipleInstances=false
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DisableIntelligentStart=false
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SkipCompregFix=false
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RunLocally=false
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AlwaysUse32Bit=false
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The FirefoxDirectory, ProfileDrectory, SettingsDirectory and PluginsDirectory entries
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should be set to the *relative* path to the directories containing firefox.exe, your
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profile, your plugins, etc. from the current directory. All must be a subdirectory
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(or multiple subdirectories) of the directory containing FirefoxPortable.exe. The
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default entries for these are described in the installation section above. The
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FirefoxDirectory as well as the path provided with a 64 appended will be checked for
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the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Firefox respectively.
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The FirefoxExecutable entry allows you to set the Firefox Portable Launcher to use
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an alternate EXE call to launch firefox. This is helpful if you are using a machine
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that is set to deny firefox.exe from running. You'll need to rename the firefox.exe
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file and then enter the name you gave it on the firefoxexecutable= line of the INI.
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The AdditionalParameters entry allows you to pass additional commandline parameter
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entries to firefox.exe. Whatever you enter here will be appended to the call to
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firefox.exe.
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The LocalHomepage entry allows you to set Firefox Portable to use a local file on your
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read-only disc (CD/DVD/etc) as your homepage when running in Live mode. It's not necessary
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for use on regular drives (the launcher handles portablizing your homepage path). The
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file must be a path relative to the launcher. If you were to set it to a file in the
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same directory as FirefoxPortable.exe, you would use LocalHomepage=homepage.html If it
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was in a subdirectory called homepage, you would enter LocalHomepage=homepage/homepage.html.
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The WaitForFirefox entry allows you to set the launcher to remain active until Firefox has
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closed. This is useful if you wish to have another process wait until Firefox Portable
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has closed. The launcher will automatically wait for Firefox to close in cases where it
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needs to clean up after firefox.exe (for instance, to clean up %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox
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when there is no locally-installed Firefox).
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The DisableSplashScreen entry allows you to run the Firefox Portable Launcher without the
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splash screen showing up. The default is false.
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The AllowMultipleInstances entry will allow Firefox Portable to run alongside your
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regular local copy of Firefox if you set it to true (lowercase). The default is false.
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The DisableIntelligentStart entry allows you to to have Firefox Portable run its chrome
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and component registry fixes on every start. Normally, it tracks when you've moved to a
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new path (switching PCs for instance) and only processes the chrome and component
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registry when you do. By skipping it when the path is the same, Firefox Portable starts
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up faster. But, if you copy a profile into Firefox Portable between sessions (it handles
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a copy in on first run automatically), it won't know to process these. This usually
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happens if you copy a profile into Firefox Portable from your local PC on a regular basis
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with a sync utility that doesn't work with Firefox Portable (like Portable Apps Sync
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does). Setting this to true causes Firefox Portable to process each on every start.
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The SkipCompregFix entry allows you to set Firefox Portable not to adjust the component
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registry (compreg.dat) for certain extension compatibility on launch. It is useful if
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you are only using Firefox Portable on computers you control and are able to have the
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drive letter set the same each time or if you are not using extensions which make use of
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the component registry (like Forecast Fox or the Mozilla Calendar) as Firefox Portable
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will launch more quickly. Set it to true (lowercase) to skip chrome.rdf processing. The
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default is false.
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The RunLocally entry allows you to set Firefox Portable to copy your profile, plugins and
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Firefox binaries to the local machine's temp directory. This can be useful for instances
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where you'd like to run Firefox Portable from a CD (aka Firefox Portable Live) or when
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you're working on a machine that may have spyware or viruses and you'd like to keep your
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device set to read-only mode. The only caveat is, of course, that any changes you make
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that session (cookies, bookmarks, etc) aren't saved back to your device. When done
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running, the local temp directories used by Firefox Portable are removed. RunLocally does
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not currently work with AllowMultipleInstances as it cannot track which version of
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Firefox is running. RunLocally will only use the 32-bit version of Firefox. Note that this
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option is not well maintained and may or may not work with each new release.
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The AlwaysUse32Bit entry allows you to set Firefox Portable to use the 32-bit version of
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Firefox even when run on a 64-bit machine. This can be useful when used with a legacy
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plugin which is only available as a 32-bit plugin as well as when testing extensions and
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web apps.
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PROGRAM HISTORY / ABOUT THE AUTHORS
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===================================
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This launcher contains suggestions from multiple sources. It began as a batch file launcher
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written by myself (John T. Haller) and posted to the mozillaZine.org thread about running
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Firefox from a USB key. tracon later released a launcher called fflaunch which I
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enhanced and re-released as Firefox Portable. mai9 later improved on fflaunch's
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techniques and released it as Free The Fox. Multiple suggestions back and forth from mai9,
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myself and others lead to the launcher we have today. This most recent version adds my
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methods for allowing the code to be run from anywhere on first launch (as opposed to a
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specific directory), pass in commandline options, run without an ini file, allow the use
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of profiles from local installations, intelligent startup (the launcher determines whether
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paths have changed) and more.
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CURRENT LIMITATIONS
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===================
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INCOMPATIBLE EXTENSIONS - Certain extensions use additional local files or prefs.js in a
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non-standard way to store information, neither of which are handled by the Firefox Portable
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launcher when moving between machines.
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