Portable Firefox Launcher 1.0.8
===============================
Written by John T. Haller
- with additional code from Free The Fox by mai9 and fflaunch by tracon

Website: http://portablefirefox.mozdev.org/


ABOUT PORTABLE FIREFOX
======================
The Portable Firefox Launcher allows you to run Firefox from a removable drive whose letter changes as you move it to another computer.  The browser and the profile can be entirely self-contained on the drive and then used on any Windows computer.  Specific configuration changes are made to the chrome.rdf so that your extensions will still work as the drive letter changes.


LICENSE
=======
This code is released under the GPL.  The full code is included with this package as PortableFirefox.nsi.


INSTALLATION / DIRECTORY STRUCTURE
==================================
By default, the program expects one of 3 directory structures:

-\ <--- Directory with PortableFirefox.exe
  +\firefox\
  +\plugins\
  +\profile\

OR

-\ <--- Directory with PortableFirefox.exe
  +\PortableFirefox\
    +\firefox\
    +\plugins\
    +\profile\

OR

-\ <--- Directory with PortableFirefox.exe
  +\PortableApps\
    +\PortableFirefox\
      +\firefox\
      +\plugins\
      +\profile\


It can be used in other directory configurations by including the PortableFirefox.ini file in the same directory as PortableFirefox.exe and configuring it as details in the INI file section below.  The INI file may also be placed in a subdirectory of the directory containing PortableFirefox.exe called PortableFirefox or 2 directories deep in PortableApps\PortableFirefox.  All paths in the INI should remain relative to the EXE and not the INI.


PORTABLEFIREFOX.INI CONFIGURATION
=================================
The Portable Firefox Launcher will look for an ini file called PortableFirefox.ini within its directory.  If you are happy with the default options, it is not necessary, though.  The INI file is formatted as follows:

[PortableFirefox]
firefoxdirectory=firefox
profiledirectory=profile
pluginsdirectory=plugins
additionalparameters=-commandline -parameters
allowmultipleinstances=false
skipchromefix=false
skipcompregfix=false
waitforfirefox=false
firefoxexecutable=firefox.exe

The firefoxdirectory, profiledirectory and pluginsdirectory entries should be set to the *relative* path to the directories containing firefox.exe, your profile and your plugins from the current directory.  All must be a subdirectory (or multiple subdirectories) of the directory containing PortableFirefox.exe.  The default entries for these are described in the installation section above.

The additionalparameters entry allows you to pass additional commandline parameter entries to firefox.exe.  Whatever you enter here will be appended to the call to firefox.exe.

The allowmultipleinstances entry will allow Portable Firefox to run alongside your regular local copy of Firefox if you set it to true (lowercase).  The default is false.

The skipchromefix entry allows you to set Portable Firefox not to adjust the chrome.rdf for extension compatibility on launch.  It is useful if you are only using Portable Firefox on computers you control and are able to have the drive letter set the same each time as Portable Firefox will launch more quickly.  Set it to true (lowercase) to skip chrome.rdf processing.  The default is false.

The skipcompregfix entry allows you to set Portable Firefox not to adjust the component registry (compreg.dat) for certain extension compatibility on launch.  It is useful if you are only using Portable Firefox on computers you control and are able to have the drive letter set the same each time or if you are not using extensions which make use of the component registry (like Forecast Fox or the Mozilla Calendar) as Portable Firefox will launch more quickly.  Set it to true (lowercase) to skip chrome.rdf processing.  The default is false.

The waitforfirefox entry allows you to set the Portable Firefox Launcher to wait for Firefox to close before it closes.  This option is mainly of use when PortableFirefox.exe is called by another program that awaits it's conclusion to perform a task.  It is useful when used with the PortableFirefoxLive launcher.

The firefoxexecutable entry allows you to set the Portable Firefox Launcher to use an alternate EXE call to launch firefox.  This is helpful if you are using a machine that is set to deny firefox.exe from running.  You'll need to rename the firefox.exe file and then enter the name you gave it on the firefoxexecutable= line of the INI.


PROGRAM HISTORY / ABOUT THE AUTHORS
===================================
This launcher contains elements from multiple sources.  It began as a batch file launcher written by myself (John T. Haller) and posted to the mozillaZine.org thread about running Firefox from a USB key.  tracon later released a launcher called fflaunch which I enhanced and re-released as Portable Firefox.  mai9 later improved on fflaunch's techniques and released it as Free The Fox.  Multiple suggestions back and forth as well as improvements from mai9, myself and others lead to the launcher we have today.  This most recent version adds some of mai9's methods for running multiple copies of Firefox and my methods for allowing the code to be run from anywhere on first launch (as opposed to a specific directory), pass in commandline options, run without an ini file and allow the use of profiles from local installations.


CURRENT LIMITATIONS
===================
SOME THEMES FAIL - Some themes may not work correctly with Portable Firefox

LOCAL FILES CREATED - A directory (%userprofile%\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox) is created on the local machine (if Firefox is not installed locally) and a pluginreg.dat file is created within it. A Talkback directory is also created.  This is a limitation of Firefox itself.

INCOMPATIBLE EXTENSIONS - Certain extensions use additional local files or prefs.js to store information, neither of which are handled by the Portable Firefox launcher when moving between machines.

NO PORTABLE JAVA - Sun's Java VM needs to be installed locally as it makes a slew of registry entries, etc. There is no way to make it portable at present, so you will only be able to use Java-enabled sites on machines that have the Sun Java VM installed locally.

WRITE ACCESS REQUIRED - Both the Firefox directory and the profile directory must be writeable on the USB drive. Drives with a writable switch can not be in read-only mode.