Tete's Atelier: Firefox & Thunderbird private builds

lautrepay · **Joined:** Sat Mar 26, 2011 2:31 am **Posts:** 646

Website: http://www1.plala.or.jp/tete009/en-US/software.html

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1. Firefox Private Build
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Last updated: March 14, 2012
1.1. Feature

These are my private builds of the Win32 version of Firefox. These builds are not the official builds of Mozilla. Personally made by me. Use it at your own risk. The features are as follows:

Windows 2000 and later recommended.
No installer.
I recommend changing the value of "general.useragent.extra.firefox" from "Namoroka/…" and other strings to "Firefox/…", and some sites and add-ons will work properly.
If you execute 'Module binder for Private Build' and finish modules binding, Firefox may be started faster.
An incompatible nssckbi.dll installed in a different directory can impede the startup of a new build. If so, please rename the old nssckbi.dll temporarily before trying to run the new build.
Applied Miyasaka's "IJG's JPEG software with x86 SIMD extension V.1.02" (Namoroka).
Added my patches into a Source folder.

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2. Thunderbird Private Build
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Last updated: March 15, 2012
2.1. Feature

These are my private builds of the Win32 version of Thunderbird. These builds are not the official builds of Mozilla. Personally made by me. Use it at your own risk. The features are as follows:

Windows 2000 and later recommended.
No installer.
If you execute 'Module binder for Private Build' and finish modules binding, Thunderbird may be started faster.
An incompatible nssckbi.dll installed in a different directory can impede the startup of a new build. If so, please rename the old nssckbi.dll temporarily before trying to run the new build.
Used Miyasaka's "IJG's JPEG software with x86 SIMD extension V.1.02" (Lanikai).
Enabled canvas.
Added my patches into a Source folder.

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4.2. About tmemutil.ini
Last updated: January 8, 2012

The tmemutil.ini file is a text file that contains the initialization options for tete009 builds. When the tmemutil.ini file exists in the root folder of tete009 build, tete009 build will get initialization data from it. The following keys are currently supported in the [General] section.

[General] Section
Portable

Enable or disable portable mode. If this value is "0", portable mode is disabled (default). If the value is "1", portable mode is enabled.

If you enable portable mode, the paths of application data folder (identify it with CSIDL_APPDATA) and the local application data folder (identify it with CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA) are replaced into the subfolders (AppData and LocalAppData) of the folder specified by the PortableDataPath. It means data such as profiles is saved within the folder specified by the PortableDataPath.

PortableDataPath
Specifies the place to save the portable data, when enabled the portable mode. Default value is "PortableData".

The PortableDataPath accepts a relative path. The relative path is based on the location of the root folder of tete009 build. If an error occurs when resolving the path, the default value ("PortableData") is used for the PortableDataPath.

carbonize · **Posted:** Tue Mar 27, 2012 1:14 am

What, if any, is the advantage to these over the PA versions?

lautrepay · **Joined:** Sat Mar 26, 2011 2:31 am **Posts:** 646

carbonize wrote:

What, if any, is the advantage to these over the PA versions?

It depends on your preferences. If you don't mind wrappers, none.

JohnTHaller · **Posted:** Tue Mar 27, 2012 10:34 am

In addition to the site and addon compatibility issues mentioned, there's also the fact that these packages are illegal (due to trademark violations unless they change the names from Firefox and Thunderbird to something else or get express permission from Mozilla for these modifications). And there's no updater included.

lautrepay · **Joined:** Sat Mar 26, 2011 2:31 am **Posts:** 646

Firefox 13.0 private build and Earlybird (Thunderbird) 13.0 private build are available.

Download Firefox @ http://www1.plala.or.jp/tete009/software/mozilla/firefox/release/firefox-13.0-2012060104.en-US.win32-tete009-sse2-pgo.exe
Language packs: http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/13.0/win32/xpi/

Download Earlybird @ http://www1.plala.or.jp/tete009/software/mozilla/thunderbird/earlybird-13.0-2012060517.en-US.win32-tete009-sse-pgo.exe
Language packs: http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/13.0/win32/xpi/

Follow the instructions of the first post to make them natively portables.
No addon compatibility issues detected (73 extensions tested).

Is there any kind soul here who can test these applications for "stealthness"?
My machine is over-populated by several species of foxes and birds, so to me it's impossible to do so...
Thanks in advance.

joby_toss · **Posted:** Thu Jun 07, 2012 4:00 am

It's as stealth as a browser can be...

Easybird not tested.
Is it still illegal?

JohnTHaller · **Posted:** Thu Jun 07, 2012 8:03 am

joby_toss wrote:

It's as stealth as a browser can be...

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition doesn't have that issue.

joby_toss wrote:

Is it still illegal?

Unless they have permission from Mozilla to build a modified version with the registered trademark intact (and they don't) it is illegal.

lautrepay · **Joined:** Sat Mar 26, 2011 2:31 am **Posts:** 646

joby_toss wrote:

It's as stealth as a browser can be...

Thank you very much for your test, joby_toss!
To be sincere, I expected more traces.
On the other hand, I think that I should seriously consider the possibility of using a sandbox or a virtual machine to do my tests.

joby_toss wrote:

Easybird not tested.
Is it still illegal?

Firefox surely, Earlybird probably.
But no more than the winPenPack's versions...
Either way, we should take these developments as a curiosity only.

JohnTHaller wrote:

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition doesn't have that issue.

John, you are like certain politicians: extremely capable but all the time thinking they are in the tribune giving a speech...

JohnTHaller · **Posted:** Thu Jun 07, 2012 6:18 pm

lautrepay wrote:

John, you are like certain politicians: extremely capable but all the time thinking they are in the tribune giving a speech...

joby said 'It's as stealth as a browser can be...' and showed links to what the browser left behind, implying that all portable browsers would leave stuff like that behind. I stated that Firefox Portable doesn't do that (since it is 'stealth' in PFC lingo). That's not a campaign at all.

lautrepay · **Joined:** Sat Mar 26, 2011 2:31 am **Posts:** 646

JohnTHaller wrote:

lautrepay wrote:

John, you are like certain politicians: extremely capable but all the time thinking they are in the tribune giving a speech...

joby said 'It's as stealth as a browser can be...' and showed links to what the browser left behind, implying that all portable browsers would leave stuff like that behind. I stated that Firefox Portable doesn't do that (since it is 'stealth' in PFC lingo). That's not a campaign at all.

joby_toss is one of the most reputed members of TPFC, and I am sure you are aware about his knowledge of portable and portabilized apps in general, and Firefox Portable Edition in particular.
So, your comment was not addressed to joby, but... "pour la galerie".

JohnTHaller · **Posted:** Fri Jun 08, 2012 4:06 am

lautrepay wrote:

joby_toss is one of the most reputed members of TPFC, and I am sure you are aware about his knowledge of portable and portabilized apps in general, and Firefox Portable Edition in particular.
So, your comment was not addressed to joby, but... "pour la galerie".

Actually, I am not aware. I don't know most of the members here as I don't spend a ton of time on PFC. Most of my time is spent on PortableApps.com. I just poke around here and there and add bits and help out where I can, like fixing the download link in Process Explorer's entry yesterday or letting folks know about unique enhancements to LibreOffice Portable.

joby_toss · **Posted:** Fri Jun 08, 2012 4:48 am

All I wanted to say is that it is impossible to run a browser on a system and have no traces of that action.
This is what I got from FirefoxPortable (PA.c version), and it's not something settings-related:

Sorry for the trouble!

webfork · **Posted:** Sat Jun 09, 2012 9:33 am

JohnTHaller wrote:

joby_toss wrote:

Is it still illegal?

Unless they have permission from Mozilla to build a modified version with the registered trademark intact (and they don't) it is illegal.

Seems this question comes up at least every few months so I created a separate thread to answer it. (The idea being that I'll just point to this from now on when anyone asks.)

JohnTHaller · **Posted:** Sun Jun 10, 2012 9:49 am

joby_toss wrote:

All I wanted to say is that it is impossible to run a browser on a system and have no traces of that action.
This is what I got from FirefoxPortable (PA.c version), and it's not something settings-related:

Hi joby_toss. Thanks for the report. The mozilla.org key being left behind would be classified as a bug for us as the launcher is supposed to clean it up on exit. Is there anything within it? Anything specific done within Firefox that causes this or a simple start and exit causing it for you? And I'm guessing this is on Windows 7 x64, correct? Also, does this happen on a real Windows machine or only when using a sandbox (most sandbox software has issues with registry stuff being handled properly in my experience)? If it's only in the sandbox and not on real Windows, then there's not much we can do to fix that.

MUICache is a special case as it is not created by the app, but created by Windows itself (like Prefetch and others) and is thus left alone.

joby_toss · **Posted:** Sun Jun 10, 2012 1:28 pm

You're right, it was a sandbox issue.

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MUICache is a special case as it is not created by the app, but created by Windows itself (like Prefetch and others) and is thus left alone.

Indeed.

Tete's Atelier: Firefox & Thunderbird private builds

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