Run Firefox from removable media
This advanced tip makes it possible to run Firefox from removable media, such as a USB memory stick. This will allow you to run Firefox with your personal settings from any computer, even those that don’t have Firefox installed. It has only been tested on Windows XP/2000. The basic instructions are as follows:
1. Copy the Firefox application folder and your profile folder to the removable medium. In this example we will use R:\Firefox for the application folder and R:\FFProfile as the profile folder, assuming the drive letter for the removable media is R:.
2. Create a simple batch file called R:\Firefox.bat with the following line:
start \Firefox\firefox.exe -profile \FFProfile
3. Optionally, disable the disk cache to reduce the amounts of file writes to the removable storage by entering about:config in the address field of Firefox and set browser.cache.disk.enable to false.
The reason why a batch file is needed instead of a simple shortcut is that a shortcut uses absolute paths, and since the actual drive letter for the removable media may change depending on which computer it is plugged into, the relative path used in the batch file is guaranteed to work anywhere.
This is a useful tip for FF that I want to employ sometime. I have an external hard drive, the one from my old dead laptop, and this way I can use it to surf using it — My Settings — take them where ever my little drive will lead me. 🙂
I’ve read up on this sort of thing before, but they were complicated versions of using FF on a removable drive with an older version of FF. That was awhile ago, and I don’t recall actually running into this very simple fix before. It’s one of those things that makes me go hmmmm … is it really that easy now?
Also then, I know I read about having FF installed on another computer or removable drive and keeping them in sync with your stable home setup … so like you have a work computer and a home computer, keep the browsers in sync, or you have a home computer and a removable drive, keep those browsers in sync.
THAT’S the ultimate thing for me to want to do, so this post is just a tip to myself to do some more looking, and to pass on a good tip that is right there on the FF pages that are easily accessible, not a special search, but kind of blend in, in my estimation.