Firefox Portable

[webfork]

It's my understanding that allowing FF Portable to update itself still retains its portability, correct? Just wanted to confirm since recent versions seem to force updates regardless of the user preferences or about:config options.

I have mine set to "check for updates but let me decide when to install them" and it seemed to prompt me about the changes a few days ago. So I can't confirm if that's an issue. Did you go for a really long time without an update? Maybe it forces the update after like a month or something?

As to the portability question, I'll keep my eyes open.

[Specular]

I have mine set to "check for updates but let me decide when to install them" and it seemed to prompt me about the changes a few days ago. So I can't confirm if that's an issue. Did you go for a really long time without an update? Maybe it forces the update after like a month or something?

As to the portability question, I'll keep my eyes open.

I had mine auto update after a relaunch, following an install of a v68 PA installer I had, despite checking the first launch that the program was set to notify on updates only. It seemed to download the update either way that first time since it showed the progress of downloading the update even when double-checking the setting.

After it updated that time it seems to now respect the notify only setting (currently on v72). That said if it doesn't affect portability I don't mind for such test installs.

Also happy 8888th post

[zorro]

Auto-updating the PA-Firefox affects stealthness but not portability.
In earlier versions, when the udate download (from inside the "about" dialog) was complete, you were able to ignore the "click here to restart and apply" (or something like that), restart your firefox with the PA-launcher and the update was installed anyway.
Since some time I realised that after restarting with the launcher the button for restarting and updating in the about box remains - so you have to restart clicking there. This calls the firefox.exe, not the lancher, so after this restart you should shut firefox down and restart it again using the launcher. Now, when you shut firefox down again, the launcher may or may not clean up the mess from the previous (direct from firefox.exe) start. I couldn't figure out why sometimes all is cleaned up and sometimes you have to manually remove the folders in AppData, ProgramData and the registry entries.

No big deal at all, but if you update the PA version from inside firefox, it's a good idea to update the whole PA-version from time to time since sometimes Mozilla adds new settings (as for the folder in ProgramData, that came along with version... forgot) that are not handled by older versions of the launcher.

[Specular]

In earlier versions, when the udate download (from inside the "about" dialog) was complete, you were able to ignore the "click here to restart and apply" (or something like that), restart your firefox with the PA-launcher and the update was installed anyway.

Since some time I realised that after restarting with the launcher the button for restarting and updating in the about box remains...

If you update the PA version from inside firefox, it's a good idea to update the whole PA-version from time to time since sometimes Mozilla adds new settings (as for the folder in ProgramData, that came along with version... forgot) that are not handled by older versions of the launcher.

Hmm, in this case the update download progress was observed from within the settings, above the options for whether to auto update or notify on updates (it displayed a 'N out of N MB downloaded' strip).

Good tip on periodically installing a newer PA installer in case newer versions add things not accounted for by the launcher. Thanks for that.

[webfork]

Also happy 8888th post

Thanks

[freakazoid]

No big deal at all, but if you update the PA version from inside firefox, it's a good idea to update the whole PA-version from time to time since sometimes Mozilla adds new settings (as for the folder in ProgramData, that came along with version... forgot) that are not handled by older versions of the launcher.

Yean, I usually manually update Firefox myself as I use a custom Firefox build, but sometimes I want to update the PA launcher and only the PA launcher. However, I don't see anywhere on PA's site or on SourceForge where you can just download the FirefoxPortable.exe file. It's probably possible to compile from source somewhere, but I haven't looked into this yet.

[webfork]

A few pieces of Firefox news:

Firefox turns on encrypted DNS, which is very long overdue. It's far from perfect, but it's a dramatic privacy improvement for avoiding the already absurd practice of your ISP selling userdata. We are well past the point of Internet being optional anymore since everything is online, so you *have* to either submit to someone selling your userdata, or shell out additional money for a slower connection inside a VPN. At least here in the States.
https://arstechnica.com/information-tec ... ping-isps/

Meanwhile Chrome is talking about enabling this feature, but it may not matter if the ISPs buy or contribute to userdata from Google: "... even if you use a proxy, VPN, or Tor, Google (including DoubleClick) might be able to recognize you using the X-client-data." https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahe ... 79d87f190d

[SYSTEM]

Meanwhile Chrome is talking about enabling this feature, but it may not matter if the ISPs buy or contribute to userdata from Google: "... even if you use a proxy, VPN, or Tor, Google (including DoubleClick) might be able to recognize you using the X-client-data." https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahe ... 79d87f190d

Well, Google claims that they don't use X-Client-Data to track users, but only to check which field trials are enabled (they're randomized for every Chrome user).

I checked that Vivaldi doesn't send the X-Client-Data header at all.

[freakazoid]

but it may not matter if the ISPs buy or contribute to userdata from Google: "... even if you use a proxy, VPN, or Tor, Google (including DoubleClick) might be able to recognize you using the X-client-data." https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahe ... 79d87f190d

Another reason to use Ungoogled Chromium, which strips this header to begin with. More info here - https://lwn.net/Articles/811532/

Looks like Vivaldi and Brave also strip the header according to the comments in that article.

[webfork]

Looks like Vivaldi and Brave also strip the header according to the comments in that article.

A bit more digging and it looks like that's already available in Chrome https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-en ... le-chrome/ ... I guess the question is whether or not any idea if those off-shoot programs have or will enable encrypted DNS by default in the future?

[SYSTEM]

A bit more digging and it looks like that's already available in Chrome https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-en ... le-chrome/ ... I guess the question is whether or not any idea if those off-shoot programs have or will enable encrypted DNS by default in the future?

Google is planning to enable DoH by default for users who already use a DoH-enabled DNS service in Chrome 82: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.or ... cOKhDUGQAJ I think other Chromium-based browsers will follow suit at the same time.

For reference, Chrome is currently at version 80. However, major updates are paused at the moment because of coronavirus.

[Midas]

Friendly reminder: this is a Firefox topic, discussions about Chrome and its variants should be moved to the relevant topic.

[freakazoid]

FYI, Firefox 74.0.1 was just released and it's a security release. I've manually updated, but those waiting for PA.com should wait a day or so.

[giulia]

hi
is there a way to delete the 32bit version and fix the config to run firefox 64bit only?
just to clean 70mb or more of the 32bit version

thanks

[zorro]

Hello Giulia,

yes, there are two ways:
1. you can add a file called "FirefoxPortable.ini" where FirefoxPortable.exe resides, containing the following:

Code: Select all

[FirefoxPortable]
FirefoxDirectory=App\Firefox64

You can also find this file in the "Other" folder of a portable installation from PortableApps, copy it over to your EXE and add the "FirefoxDirectory..." line
2. simpler: just delete the firefox folder under "App" and rename the firefox64 folder to "firefox".