12

I've installed latest firefox linux-x86_64 from ftp.mozilla.com on a usb device and created a new profile file with the -P command. Unfortunately, the application does not recognize the flash plugin that is already installed on the operating system.

How can I enable the flash plugin on the portable version?

enter image description here

mate64
  • 1,469
  • 5
  • 16
  • 24

3 Answers3

15

How to Use Mozilla Firefox, Portable with flash plugin

Make your portable for Linux (all versions):

  1. Download the latest release of Firefox and unpack it on your usb device: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/

  2. Go to unpack_directory/firefox/browser/plugins ( 22+).

  3. Add a short link to your installed flash-plugin binary (libflasplayer.so). It's usually in /usr/lib64/flash-plugin/.

Optionally: Download the UNIX version of the flash-plugin binary from adobe.com and copy it from the archive. Please remember: the flash-plugin is a binary file, no compilation process is needed!

1. Copy the firefox directory to your portable device

2. Create a simple shortcut:

Here's my startup.sh that I have placed on my usb device ($PWD is the current directory (example: USB_DEVICE/firefox_x64).

#!/bin/sh
"$PWD/firefox_x64/firefox" -no-remote -profile
"$PWD/../.mozilla/firefox/YOUR_PROFILE_ID"

3. Run firefox with command line to create a new profile:

You can create a new profile with the -P command as shown below. I've created my profile inside USB_DEVICE/.mozilla/firefox. You can set this path later. This is Mozilla's default folder skeletton for application settings (like seamonkey, thunderbird or B2G). To create a new profile run:

[user@home]# cd /USB_DEVICE/firefox_x64
[user@home firefox_x64]# ./firefox -no-remote -P

Mozilla Firefox Profile Manager (-P)

FAQ: How to use the new USB profile with :

For Windows just use the Portable Firefox from portableapps.com and run the same commands (step no. 3, simply add the -profile command to the executable .exe).

mate64
  • 1,469
  • 5
  • 16
  • 24
  • Portable firefox from portablelinuxapps.org is 41MB while using this method, is 260MB. Fortunately RAM consumption is the same, so this is great. – Adrian Lopez Sep 13 '15 at 01:00
  • **You are wrong.** All portablelinuxapps.org products are outdated. They use Firefox version `31.0`, which is from **2013**… – mate64 Sep 14 '15 at 16:40
1

Linux Apps

Check out the PortableApps.org project for Linux applications. They offer a lot of the more popular apps as standalone as well.

Windows Apps

Have you had a look at the PortableApps project? It provides both a fully portable version of Firefox along with methods for installing most of the popular addons such as Flash, Java, etc.

The directions for setting up Flash, etc. are available here. The general steps are as follows:

  • Flash Plugin - To install Flash, you can either try our easy to use Flash installer for Firefox Portable, or follow these steps:

    1. Flash is available as an extension. Just click the link.
    2. You'll probably see a yellow bar across the top of the browser (if not, skip to Step 5), on that bar, click Edit Options
    3. In the popup window, click Allow to add PortableApps.com to your whitelist and then click close
    4. Now try the link again
    5. You'll see a popup asking if you would like to install, click OK after the countdown and follow along the prompts
slm
  • 363,520
  • 117
  • 767
  • 871
  • 1
    -1 *Is this a joke* ? This is a cheap answer, copied and pasted **for the windows version**... – mate64 Apr 21 '13 at 07:09
  • ^ true, this is for windows and won't work for linux as the mentioned applications, pathes and extensions are different. It also really just a copy and paste from the website. – superuser0 Apr 21 '13 at 08:56
  • A lot of answers are copy/pastes of information from other sites, I wasn't sure if you were familiar with the concept that there are portableapps available. I don't think I was trying to hide that fact. At any rate see my updates to the answer, I've added the portableapps project for linux apps as well. – slm Apr 21 '13 at 11:12
  • PortableApps.org project for Linux applications is discounted. – mate64 Apr 21 '13 at 13:32
  • @cept0, would you mind posting the link that says that, I couldn't find it on their website. – slm Apr 21 '13 at 13:35
  • Looking at the forums the project seems alive to me: http://portablelinuxapps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=355 – slm Apr 21 '13 at 13:41
-1

Let me clarify something: You have installed firefox on a removable disk, and you plan to plug this disk to an other Linux machine and make it work ?

Have you already test/use it (beside the adobe flash plugin) ? (on a machine without Firefox installed ?)

On which distro ?

On my system (Linux Mint Debian Edition), Firefox instal some files in :

  • /opt/firefox
  • /usr/bin
  • /usr/share/doc/firefox
  • other ?

Adobe Flash :

  • /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree
  • /usr/lib/mozilla/
  • /usr/sbin/
  • /usr/share/doc/
  • /usr/share/icons/hicolor
  • /var/cache/
  • /var/lib/

I never heard of any "portable" installation on Linux (doesn't mean that it's not possible). On Linux (Unix), applications depend a lot of what is installed on the "host" machine (called dependency), How do you manage that ?

And where the user profile is saved ?

if in "~/.mozilla/firefox/" then your installation isn't portable and you may face some trouble depending on the version installed on the machine compared to your "portable" version

ericc
  • 137
  • 4
  • 1
    **You can use firefox on any usb device.** It works without *any* complications on **every linux x64 distribution**. Remember: Firefox is a binary, usually no compilation is needed. I've posted my solution. It was a bit dramatic, because there's a messed up documentation on mozilla.com. – mate64 Apr 21 '13 at 10:26
  • Ok, I wasn't aware – ericc Apr 21 '13 at 13:24
  • I don't think you answer is right, as pointed out by mate64. You should probably delete it. – Slim Aloui Dec 06 '22 at 15:26