In the last couple of weeks the reality of a portable Firefox browser became a reality. Not so much because there were not portable versions before, but that the idea seem to be catching on and the 1.5 release seems to now be available. So what exactly is a portable Firefox browser mean?

Today, we have access to more computers and while the idea of using a ASP (application service provider) seems appealing, right now most people just want to take their browser settings with them. For example, say you have access to a computer lab, but you do not want to leave your settings on a shared computer. The solution is an inexpensive flash drive and a customized version of Firefox which allows you to keep all your settings on the flash drive. This means you can take all your cookies, password logins, bookmarks, and even use all your favorite extensions. There are also portable versions of Thunderbird, the Mozilla email client, but in the case of email most people prefer HotMail or GMail to a portable application. Here are a few places to try in case you need a portable Firefox.

Portable Firefox at PortableApps

The recently launched PortableApps.com website has a full library of all kinds of portable apps you can use on your USB flash drive. The main ones are opensource related like OpenOffice and all the Mozilla apps, including Firefox, Thunderbird, and Nvu the web editor. Most apps can be started by clicking an icon that sets up the application to run without writing data to the main hard drive. The best thing of all is that all these apps work on any portable drive, or if you want use them on a local hard drive and then just copy them to a flash drive and you have all your settings with you. It really makes me wonder why Windows does not work this way to begin with!

U3 Firefox

Some brands of USB flash drives are U3 drives. These drives come with an application launcher and special software that runs U3 applications in a special environment, so that no data is written to the main computer’s hard drive at all. The difference between Portable Apps and U3 apps is that most U3 apps are not free. U3 is essentially a platform, and software vendors can make their apps U3 apps and then sell them just like regular Windows applications. Some apps though are free, like Firefox and Thunderbird. If you do not have a flash drive yet, you might consider a U3 drive since it makes application management easier. U3.com has a Software Central area which lists all applications that are available.

Portable Firefox Re-Loaded

You will find that plenty of people are revising John Haller’s Portable Firefox version to fit certain needs, like being able to have a portable version that runs on Mac OS X. The more interesting one is Cross-platform Portable Firefox, which claims to be able to run on Windows and Mac OS X at the same time. This is done by using a script for OS X to make the profile work correctly. Confused? Wait till Mac Firefox for Intel comes out, imagine how confusing that is going to be! But if you only want a straight OS X portable version, then you can try FreeSMUG.org’s Portable Firefox OS X version.

Recommendations

Personally if you are not a computer wizard, your best bet is to get a U3 drive and use one of the versions off of their site. Most likely by the time you read this, most U3 drives will come prepackaged with Firefox anyway. If you prefer an empty flash drive, then John Haller’s Portable Firefox seems to be the standard.

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While I use Firefox 1.5 on Windows as my default browser, on Mac OS X, Firefox just feels unfinished compared to Apple’s Safari. In Windows world, Firefox has leaped frogged the current IE in terms of features, (with stability being reasonable for a third party browser) which makes Firefox a no-brainer choice. However Apple’s Safari is a new browser and while it may not have actual extensions, it still has quite a feature list and it is comparable if not faster than Firefox.

The more annoying problems with the 1.5 release are web site issues. Forms which do not work at all on Firefox work just fine on Safari. I should be fair and say that I have had some issues with Safari along the same lines, but Firefox 1.1 had no such issues. Firefox’s own developers admit that the OS X version of 1.5 was less than stellar:

Firefox 1.5 was a major milestone on all platforms, but it was not quite what it could have been on Mac OS X. We just didn’t have the resources to test for and fix bugs fast enough when release time rolled around. However, not delaying the release was a decision that I was happy with because it was the right thing to do, even if it meant less-than-great Mac OS X support. Firefox 1.5 was still a major upgrade in terms of Mac OS X support, and nothing to be ashamed of.

The problem was that expectations were quite high for 1.5 and on the OS X platform, the expectations did end up being a bit too high. This leaves most OS X users waiting for 1.5.1, or even the 2.0 version, at a time when the Mac world is in drastic change with Intel processor changes. To make matters worse or better depending on what your opinion is, Microsoft has dropped IE for OS X completely. This leaves only Safari and Firefox (and of course Mozilla).

While 1.5 seemed to take forever to be released, Firefox as a whole is moving to more updated releases and stability is still a main focus for the developers. Eventually Firefox will be more competitive on OS X, and perhaps Safari will start changing as well to keep up with some of the ideas the Firefox developers are integrating into their modern browser.

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After many months of hard work and a few weeks overdue, Mozilla has released Firefox 1.5 to the world. In the time that we have waited, a lot has changed. Opera went free, Safari had an update with Mac OS X 10.4.3, and even Microsoft promised a more feature laden IE 7 for Windows Vista. All the browser changes or talk of changes makes the 1.5 release of Firefox a little less underwhelming than when we were all testing it way back when as DeerPark Alpha, yet the 1.5 release does move significantly pass the 1.0 version to include such things as Javascript 1.6, an updated Gecko rendering engine, a much needed auto update feature, and overall improvements in speed. Somehow 1.5 feels just right for this browser, like it’s finally starting to feel like an actual competitor to the main stream IE. Definitely on Windows, Firefox is a definite alternative for users who want tabs, but don’t feel comfortable with Opera.

In the update process, many extensions were lost, and it has become clear that Mozilla has tightened up extensions to a point, where third party developers need to be a little more precise about what they want to add, and security has once again become a focus for Firefox development.

More importantly, the long process from 1.0 to 1.5 has not only made Microsoft put together a new IE, but it was made Mozilla developers take notice of how long their actual update cycles were taking, and they too are now pushing for shorter release cycles and security updates. We can only wait and see how long 2.0 or in between updates, like perhaps 1.6 will take.

In the meantime you can download Firefox 1.5 from any of these sites:

• www.mozilla.com
• www.getfirefox.com
• www.mozilla.org/mirrors.html

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After an extensive alpha and beta process, Firefox 1.5 is getting closer to release. The first release candidate or RC1 is now available from the Firefox Project site. So now is probably a good time to throw out some compatible add-ons that work with 1.5.

ColorZilla is my favorite color wheel tool for web development and something which I have learned to depend on more than any other online color reference tool.

Google Pagerank Status is a must for webmasters who want to know their pagerank, but who do not want to use the Google Toolbar.

For more extensions, visit The Extension Mirror.

And lastly, my favorite theme is now 1.5 compatible too. Check out SaferFox Xpanded for an interesting Firefox makeover look.

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If you are using Firefox nightly releases and the Software Update feature no longer downloads the latest nightly, you might want to read about Update Channels. Apparantly Software Update has multiple update urls you can use, referred to as update channels. There’s even a handy Update Channel Changer Extension that you can install to make the process of switching urls easier.

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