firefox (et al.) on a stick ?

JAAman · Post by **JAAman** » Tue May 09, 2006 8:49 am

beyond infinity wrote: Oh you 're not the only one cursing about too little space in one post to rant off at satisfying lenght - and at once and without the risk to lose all the typed stuff after having pushed 'send'

...
or you could just get firefox -- it will restore everything you typed if you press the 'back' button...

its better than cursing :-X

mystran · Post by **mystran** » Tue May 09, 2006 9:15 am

Ah you talking about post length. Nah, first of all I always hit preview before send, and second, I'm using to hitting ctrl-a,ctrl-c before I hit even preview, because some sites manage to confuse even firefox into losing everything.

Solar · Post by **Solar** » Tue May 09, 2006 11:42 am

JAAman wrote: ...or you could just get firefox...

Posting during office hours is bad enough. Installing an unauthorized webbrowser is a failsafe way to lose your job.

DynatOS · Post by **DynatOS** » Wed May 10, 2006 2:31 am

Solar wrote: Posting during office hours is bad enough. Installing an unauthorized webbrowser is a failsafe way to lose your job.

http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/browsers/portable_firefox

Solar · Post by **Solar** » Wed May 10, 2006 2:48 am

Yes, and next comes the hint to use an installation on an USB stick. HELLO! Changing your application, or better yet, your operating system, is not an option for some people. And it's trying to solve a problem at the wrong end of the toolchain.

JAAman · Post by **JAAman** » Wed May 10, 2006 8:29 am

HELLO! Changing your application, or better yet, your operating system, is not an option for some people

changing neither your OS nor your application is required to use firefox portable:

it gets installed on a flash drive and you just run it from the drive -- as soon as you remove the flash drive, there is no evidence left on the computer that it was ever there -- no install, no config changes, no registry keys, no browser cache, no cookies, nothing at all -- my brother uses it all the time at his work (they use a hardware system that resets the hard-drive every time you reboot, so installing anything is impossible, and he has yet to convince them to add firefox to the image)

And it's trying to solve a problem at the wrong end of the toolchain.

im not sure what you ment by that comment -- of course if you ment that the back button restoring your fields is your only reason for using firefox, then it may not be worth it (depends on how often you fill out forms online)

i do grant, that there may be some unusual cases were this is not feasable, but (imho) its a good idea most of the time (i like the idea of always having my bookmarks with me -- no matter where i am, or what computer im using)

YeXo · Post by **YeXo** » Wed May 10, 2006 8:55 am

changing neither your OS nor your application is required to use firefox portable:

You are using another application. At my school it isn't allowed to use firefox portable, althought the system admins do admit firefox is safer than internet explorer.

Quote:
And it's trying to solve a problem at the wrong end of the toolchain.
im not sure what you ment by that comment -- of course if you ment that the back button restoring your fields is your only reason for using firefox, then it may not be worth it (depends on how often you fill out forms online)

I think he means it's not the browser which should keep the information, but the site. As soon as it gives an error it should put the form right under the error and fill in what you typed.

JAAman · Post by **JAAman** » Thu May 11, 2006 8:03 am

You are using another application. At my school it isn't allowed to use firefox portable, althought the system admins do admit firefox is safer than internet explorer.

and my point was that they cannot prevent you from using it, nor would they know if you did

you are using another application, but you are not installing another application

most likely, they dont care if you use firefox portable, but they dont want you to use firefox (because firefox is installed on the computer) but firefox portable will not make any difference to the school at all because no change is made to the computer

that is why i use firefox portable on customers computers -- because it makes no change to the computer, it doesnt affect my customers at all when i use it

firefox portable is not the same as firefox they are separate programs, portable is written specifically to make no changes to the computer, and operate exclusivly from a flash drive without any installation (normal firefox will not run without installation) -- exactly for this reason: so that it can be used on computers where you are not permitted to install any programs

im not saying there arnt places where you couldnt use it, and i would never suggest using it if it was not allowed, but if the rule says you cannot install applications, or you cannot install firefox, then using firefox portable is not in violation of that rule

YeXo · Post by **YeXo** » Thu May 11, 2006 8:18 am

@JAAman
I knew perfectly well what you meant. The point is, that the system administrators can see my screen at their computers. For some reasen the deleted even firefox portable while it was not installed.
The problem is, the rules state you are not allowed to download anyting not for school, and I can't tell them I need firefox protable for my school work.

Enough offtopic talk here.

mystran · Post by **mystran** » Thu May 11, 2006 2:54 pm

JAAman wrote: and my point was that they cannot prevent you from using it, nor would they know if you did

Actually, unless you have administrator priviledges, they can.

You see, Windows has this policy editor that let's you allow and deny all kinds of things (per user or group). In fact pretty much anything can be denied (like for example accessing the display options page that allows you to change desktop background, I probably hate this one the most). It's definitely possible to enumerate the processes that you are allowed to run, in which case you get a nice popup sayin "fuckyou, you not allowed that" when you try to double click that .exe you downloaded.

Then put BIOS password on the computer, and lock on the case (so you can't reset the password) and deny booting from anything else but harddrive. Now you have to boot Windows, which will enforce the system policy.

BUT: you don't even need policy editor. You can put centrally managed local firewall there instead, with default policy to disallow network traffic from unknown programs. Then don't allow user to access those options. Now running Firefox is useless, as it can't connect anywhere.

This can be nasty even when you are local administrator, because centrally managed firewalls and antivirusprograms generally try to prevent even local administrators from touching their policies. And while it might be possible to get around that, I would possibly be breaking one or two finnish laws if I told you how, which is why I'm not going to even know.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri May 12, 2006 9:04 am

You can run normal Firefox off of a flash drive, without installing anything, assuming you've got it installed elsewhere, the you can copy the Program Files\Mozilla Firefox folder across to it, and the profile, then run it with some command-line option (from a shortcut) to use that as the profile and it installs diddly on the hard drive, so far as I know.

srg_13 · Post by **srg_13** » Wed May 17, 2006 6:42 am

Guest wrote: You can run normal Firefox off of a flash drive, without installing anything, assuming you've got it installed elsewhere, the you can copy the Program Files\Mozilla Firefox folder across to it, and the profile, then run it with some command-line option (from a shortcut) to use that as the profile and it installs diddly on the hard drive, so far as I know.

I don't think that would work. As Mystran pointed out, most of us cannot run .exe files at work/school for one thing. Then there's the firewalls that block traffic from unknown programs. Also, I beleive that Firefox wouldn't run without the registry entries, as it wouldn't know where it is, or where to store cookies, cache etc.

-Stephen

Solar · Post by **Solar** » Wed May 17, 2006 7:02 am

Add to that that my employer disables USB and CD-ROM drives by default.

Please, could we stop trying to find workarounds for mobile Firefox and simply admit that it's really bad behaviour for a forum software to drop content in case of error?

distantvoices · Post by **distantvoices** » Wed May 17, 2006 8:03 am

To this I have to say: I am in Internet, I use Memory Sticks & CDROMS because my type of work requires me to do so.

my boss knows about my doings because I have informed them and told him and he has said OK. Period. I'm to give answer for any action I'm taking and thats ok with me.

Others have more more restrictive policies to stand. Solar f. ex. can't use unallowed programs for according to his statement he'd risk being sacked for such stuff.

So urging him/proposing him to use usb sticks to get some other program running is simply no option.

Got me?

It is no Option!

Besides, just because one CAN do something he needn't do it actually. There might be reasons why it is better to refrain from "doing it". Moral. Treaty. Usances. Etc.

Just my 2 cent.

Kemp · Post by **Kemp** » Wed May 17, 2006 2:20 pm

This thread is like that Jurrasic Park quote incarnate - "You spent so long thinking about whether you *could* do it that you didn't stop to think if you *should* do it."

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