Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition (formerly known as Portable Firefox and commonly known as Firefox Portable) is a repackaged version of

Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current a ...

created by

John T. Haller PortableApps.com is a website offering free applications for Windows that have been specially packaged for portability. These portable applications are intended to be used from removable media such as USB flash drives. User data is stored in a ...

. The application allows Firefox to be run from a

USB flash drive A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than . Since fir ...

, CD-ROM, or other portable device on any

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

computer or

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

computer running

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are ...

. The program does not require Firefox to be installed on the computer, nor does it leave personal information on the computer or interfere with any installed versions of Firefox, however, installation on the computer's

data storage device Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are cons ...

is possible. The program is not totally portable, it can't run multiple instances of Firefox out of the box.https://portableapps.com/node/34589 It is compatible with Windows 7, 8, 10, 11 as well as

UNIX Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

-based systems. Although recent versions have serious compatibility issues with

WinPE Windows Preinstallation Environment (also known as Windows PE and WinPE) is a lightweight version of Windows used for the deployment of PCs, workstations, and servers, or troubleshooting an operating system while it is offline. It is intended t ...

XP and

BartPE BartPE (Bart's Preinstalled Environment) is a discontinued tool that customizes Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 into a lightweight environment, similar to Windows Preinstallation Environment, which could be run from a Live CD or Live USB drive. ...

XP, the old version 2.0.0.20 is compatible with

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released ...

, Me, and PE XP and 2000.

Differences from Mozilla Firefox

Firefox Portable retains all of Mozilla Firefox's abilities such as

extensions Extension, extend or extended may refer to: Mathematics Logic or set theory * Axiom of extensionality * Extensible cardinal * Extension (model theory) * Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values that satisfy the predicate * Ext ...

and automatic updating. Modifications to reduce the number of writes to the flash drive have also been added. The

web cache A Web cache (or HTTP cache) is a system for optimizing the World Wide Web. It is implemented both client-side and server-side. The caching of multimedias and other files can result in less overall delay when browsing the Web. Parts of the sys ...

and browser history were previously disabled under the release of 2.0. Firefox Portable's ability to delete cookies and the download history on exit is not enabled by default, as per a licensing agreement with

Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, w ...

. Personal settings,

bookmarks A bookmark is used to keep one's place in a printed work. It can also refer to: * Bookmark (digital), a pointer in a web browser and other software * ''Bookmarks'' (album) by Five for Fighting * ''Bookmarks'' (magazine), an American literary ma ...

, and any installed extensions and themes are stored on the flash drive along with Firefox Portable. This allows the user to move from computer to computer without losing application settings. Plugins such as

Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is computer software for viewing multimedia contents, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on ...

and

Shockwave Player Adobe Shockwave Player (formerly Macromedia Shockwave Player, and also known as Shockwave for Director) is a discontinued freeware software plug-in for viewing multimedia and video games created on the Adobe Shockwave platform in web pages. Con ...

cannot be installed to Portable Firefox in the usual sense, but the plug in files can be copied from a local installation to the appropriate portable folder.

Features

* Launcher – Performs a number of functions including: adjustment of paths to external programs (mime types), adjustment of paths to local homepages, intelligent recreation of the component registry as you move drives, backup/restore of certain registry keys in certain instances, cleaning of folders and directories in certain instances, adjustment of some extension setting paths making non-portable extensions portable. * Default Profile – A default profile exists within the Firefox directory with settings to improve portability. * No Default Browser Check – Firefox won't check to see if it is the default browser on start up. * Download Prompt – Firefox will ask where to save downloads. * No Disk Cache – The browser disk cache has been disabled to decrease disk size and the number of writes to the disk, possibly increasing disk life. * Update Prompt – As updating the browser on a flash drive can be very slow, Firefox Portable asks you if you'd like to update rather than doing it automatically.

Issues

*Add-ons and extensions appear to take longer to install. *Constant read-writes to an external flash drive may decrease the life expectancy of the drive. *Multiple profiles are not supported (a somewhat hidden feature in the official Firefox); however,

PortableApps.com PortableApps.com is a website offering free applications for Windows that have been specially packaged for portability. These portable applications are intended to be used from removable media such as USB flash drives. User data is stored in a s ...

released Multiple Profile Support for Firefox Portable.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable Firefox Portable software

Differences from Mozilla Firefox

Features

Issues

See also

References

External links