Mozilla firefox questions

[Antoine]

Playing with Firefox for a while, I still come across difficulties
in achieving some specific actions :

1/ How shall I set up firefox to have a blank page when it's
launched (nota : homepage is set to www.anurl.com and not to 'blank
page')

2/ I have actually used the standalone application unzipped from the
zip archive and located in a specific folder (eg c:\firefox\), have
created a new profile (whose folder is a subfolder of c:\firefox)
and have installed 2 extensions both also 'stored' under c:\firefox

I thought by doing 2/ that copying the entire folder c:\firefox
folder on another pc would enable to have exactly the same settings
: actually, nearly everything is lost (the profile settings and the
extensions settings).

Thanks in advance.

 

[Vrodok the Troll]

Playing with Firefox for a while, I still come across difficulties
in achieving some specific actions :

1/ How shall I set up firefox to have a blank page when it's
launched (nota : homepage is set to www.anurl.com and not to 'blank
page')

Tools | Options | General | Location(s): about:blank

 

[charles]

Playing with Firefox for a while, I still come across difficulties
in achieving some specific actions :

1/ How shall I set up firefox to have a blank page when it's
launched (nota : homepage is set to www.anurl.com and not to 'blank
page')

about:config

browser.startup.homepage = www.anurl.com
browser.startup.page = 0

 

[Chakolate]

2/ I have actually used the standalone application unzipped from the
zip archive and located in a specific folder (eg c:\firefox\), have
created a new profile (whose folder is a subfolder of c:\firefox)
and have installed 2 extensions both also 'stored' under c:\firefox

I thought by doing 2/ that copying the entire folder c:\firefox
folder on another pc would enable to have exactly the same settings
: actually, nearly everything is lost (the profile settings and the
extensions settings).

The profile installs to C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Phoenix\Profiles

HTH,

Chakolate

 

[Antoine]

Tools | Options | General | Location(s): about:blank

This defines 'blank page' as homepage and doesn't make it.

Thanks anyway.

 

[Antoine]

about:config

browser.startup.homepage = www.anurl.com
browser.startup.page = 0

Thanks Charles ; it works indeed.
Quite strange that this is not settable through the options dialog.

 

[Aaron]

Thanks Charles ; it works indeed.
Quite strange that this is not settable through the options dialog.

You will find that a lot of options are not settable through the options
dialog.



Aaron (my email is not munged!)

 

[Antoine]

The profile installs to C:\WINDOWS\Application
Data\Phoenix\Profiles

Thanks Chakolate.

Actually I did not exactly 'install' firefox.

a) I downloaded the zip archive :
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/0.8/Firefox-0.8.zip

b) Unzipped this archive and did what was indicated in 2/ in my previous post.

Therefore, the following folder doesn't exist :
C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Phoenix\Profiles

 

[Aaron]

Thanks Chakolate.

Actually I did not exactly 'install' firefox.

a) I downloaded the zip archive :
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/0.8/Firefox-0.8
.zip

b) Unzipped this archive and did what was indicated in 2/ in my
previous post.

Actually before this whole installer business, all of us installed
firefox/firebird/pheonex this way using the zip file.

Therefore, the following folder doesn't exist :
C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Phoenix\Profiles

The first time you launch firefox, this folder will be automatically
created. At least if you are on Windows 95/98/ME. The 2000/XP people will
have it created elsewhere



Aaron (my email is not munged!)

 

[Vrodok the Troll]

This defines 'blank page' as homepage and doesn't make it.

Works for me.

Both when starting up, and pressing the 'Home' button (or, on the off-chance
that one does not have the 'Home' button, & is using the menu-bar's "Go |
Home"), with my previously-mentioned settings, I was presented with a "Blank"
page. This is what you wanted, yes?

 

[Antoine]

The first time you launch firefox, this folder will be
automatically created. At least if you are on Windows 95/98/ME.
The 2000/XP people will have it created elsewhere

Thanks Aaron, it looks as though it were located here on my XP machine:
C:\Documents and Settings\[profile name]\Application Data\Phoenix

I conclude that the manual installation of firefox can not lead in a "one folder storage" of all the
files (executables, plugins, extensions, profiles,...), am I right ?

What does the firefox backup utility really backup (profile w or w/o extensions) ?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Aaron]

The first time you launch firefox, this folder will be
automatically created. At least if you are on Windows 95/98/ME.
The 2000/XP people will have it created elsewhere

Thanks Aaron, it looks as though it were located here on my XP
machine: C:\Documents and Settings\[profile name]\Application
Data\Phoenix

Yes. That is correct.

I conclude that the manual installation of firefox can not lead in a
"one folder storage" of all the files (executables, plugins,
extensions, profiles,...), am I right ?

If you mean you usually have to backup both the profile directory and
firefox app folder, to get everything , then yes you are right.

But this problem applies to all users even those using the installer.

As I mentioned earlier, pre 0.8 builds were all installed without the
installer. As far as I know the installer does nothing much, except the
following

1) Extract the files and put them in a directory.
2) Create entries in your start menu, including the profile manager (you
can run it manually by running say c:/firefox/firefox.exe -p)
3) A registry patch that makes installing Sun Java and other plugins
easier. (Apparantly, without the patch, the plugin is unable to recognise
Firefox, since it only "sees" Mozilla and Netscape)

Except for 3 (and that was a cause of a lot of problems for newbies who
didn't know that you had to import a registy hack to get Sun java
working),there is no difference between manually installing and using the
installer.

As for backups, when you install an extension (as opposed to a plugin
which handles specific files like Real,shockwave, acrobat reader etc) ,
it is sometimes installed in the profile only (C:\Documents and Settings
\[profile name]\ApplicationData\Phoenix), sometimes in the application
folder (c:\firefox in your case). You are often (but not always) given a
choice.

If you install all extensions in the application folder, it will run and
work for all your profiles. On the other, if you install it in your
profile folder only, obviously, it will be accessable only to that
profile.

EG When upgrading, if you reuse the same profile, but delete the firefox
folder before installing the new firefox browser, naturally only
extensions installed in the profile will be there.

Other things kept in the firefox application folder are

1) search plugins (mycroft plugins)

2) Other plugins eg shockwave

Other things kept in your profile include

1) Passwords
2) cookies
3) bookmarks (there is a nice trick so that you can point different
profiles to the same bookmark file)
4) Configuration files like user.js, usercontent.css , userchrome.css

What does the firefox backup utility really backup (profile w or w/o
extensions) ?

Never tried that, but it would be easy to test.



Aaron (my email is not munged!)

 

[Antoine]

Thanks a lot for this detailed information.

If you mean you usually have to backup both the profile directory
and firefox app folder, to get everything , then yes you are
right.

What looks not very clear, at least to me, in firefox is that the
folder (C:\Documents and Settings \[profile
name]\ApplicationData\Phoenix) is created *even* if you define in
the firefox profile manager another folder for this [profile name].
Doing so, the user actually has 2 folders containing data related to
firefox and his profile, which is not very intuitive neither very
easy to handle for *manual* backups and restores.

As I mentioned earlier, pre 0.8 builds were all installed without
the installer. As far as I know the installer does nothing much,
except the following
[...]
3) A registry patch that makes
installing Sun Java and other plugins easier. (Apparantly, without
the patch, the plugin is unable to recognise Firefox, since it
only "sees" Mozilla and Netscape)

I didn't know this one, thanks for that.

Never tried that, but it would be easy to test.

According to this screenshot coming from the firefox backup
utility's author: http://backup.jasnapaka.com/pictures/eng/obr4.png

it doesn't store much of the extensions and their settings ; some of
them like "Tabbrowser Extensions" need accurate and time-consuming
setting.

 

[Antoine]

Both when starting up, and pressing the 'Home' button (or, on the
off-chance that one does not have the 'Home' button, & is using
the menu-bar's "Go | Home"), with my previously-mentioned
settings, I was presented with a "Blank" page. This is what you
wanted, yes?

The setting you suggested leads indeed to a blank page when
firefox is launched. But I was looking for a way to keep
"www.anurl.com" as my homepage *at the same time*.

 

[Aaron]

Thanks a lot for this detailed information.

If you mean you usually have to backup both the profile directory
and firefox app folder, to get everything , then yes you are
right.

What looks not very clear, at least to me, in firefox is that the
folder (C:\Documents and Settings \[profile
name]\ApplicationData\Phoenix) is created *even* if you define in
the firefox profile manager another folder for this [profile name].

By default , it should be at

C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Phoenix\Profiles\

[username] is the Winxp username you used when logging in, NOT the Firefox
profile name. Normally the username is "administrator" I think. So if you
created a profile Antonine it will be at

C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Phoenix\Profiles
\[randomsalt]\Antonie\

I just need to be sure you understand the difference between firefox
profiles and Win2k/xp user.

Doing so, the user actually has 2 folders containing data related to
firefox and his profile, which is not very intuitive neither very
easy to handle for *manual* backups and restores.

No. The details of one Firefox profile will always be kept only in one
folder.

When creating a profile if you do choose another folder (say c:\firefox
\whatever) , then details relating to that profile will be at c:\firefox
\whatever\xxxx\profilename. If you choose the default folder, the profile
will be at C:\Documents and Settings \[user name]\ApplicationData\Phoenix
\profiles\xxx\profilename.

If The first time, you started Firefox, you did not create a profile, a
profile named "default user" will be created at C:\Documents and Settings
\[user name]\ApplicationData\Phoenix\profiles\xxxx\default user

That's all there is to it.


If you really want to backup , just backup the whole firefox folder plus
any profiles. You are making this far more complicated than it should be.

According to this screenshot coming from the firefox backup
utility's author: http://backup.jasnapaka.com/pictures/eng/obr4.png

it doesn't store much of the extensions and their settings ; some of
them like "Tabbrowser Extensions" need accurate and time-consuming
setting.

Besides, storing the extension itself (generally tbe.jar and other changes
to the chrome directory), firefox also stores the configuration of each
extension.

There are 2 ways to change options in TBE, one is via the TBE options,
another is to type about:Config in the address bar, then changing entries
that say conquery.xxxx.xxxx etc.

Either way , the changes will be stored in the file prefs.js kept in your
profile. Sounds to me that external backup utility doesn't store profiles?






Aaron (my email is not munged!)

 

[Antoine]

By default , it should be at

C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application
Data\Phoenix\Profiles\

[username] is the Winxp username you used when logging in, NOT the
Firefox profile name. Normally the username is "administrator" I
think. So if you created a profile Antonine it will be at

C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application
Data\Phoenix\Profiles \[randomsalt]\Antonie\

I just need to be sure you understand the difference between
firefox profiles and Win2k/xp user.

This remark was not useless at all ; on my WinXP machine, I had
chosen the same profile name for the Win session and the Firefox
profile that is where the confusion came from.

Doing so, the user actually has 2 folders containing data related
to firefox and his profile, which is not very intuitive neither
very easy to handle for *manual* backups and restores.

No. The details of one Firefox profile will always be kept only in
one folder.

When creating a profile if you do choose another folder (say
c:\firefox \whatever) , then details relating to that profile will
be at c:\firefox \whatever\xxxx\profilename. If you choose the
default folder, the profile will be at C:\Documents and Settings
\[user name]\ApplicationData\Phoenix \profiles\xxx\profilename.

If The first time, you started Firefox, you did not create a
profile, a profile named "default user" will be created at
C:\Documents and Settings \[user
name]\ApplicationData\Phoenix\profiles\xxxx\default user

That's all there is to it.


If you really want to backup , just backup the whole firefox
folder plus any profiles. You are making this far more complicated
than it should be.

If I understand well : assume firefox is installed again from
scratch, and a new profile is created at first launch - this profile
being for instance saved in 'c:\firefox\whatever' - there should be
no data to backup from 'c:\Documents and Settings\[win user
name]\ApplicationData\Phoenix'

Besides, storing the extension itself (generally tbe.jar and other
changes to the chrome directory), firefox also stores the
configuration of each extension.

There are 2 ways to change options in TBE, one is via the TBE
options, another is to type about:Config in the address bar, then
changing entries that say conquery.xxxx.xxxx etc.
Either way , the changes will be stored in the file prefs.js kept
in your profile. Sounds to me that external backup utility doesn't
store profiles?

It doesn't seem to me either. Your information has been much
appreciated Aaron.

To sum up my initial goal I have probably not clearly enough
explained : having to use several computers which are not part of
the same network, I was looking for a way to install firefox (from
zip or installer, it does not matter), define a profile, install
some extensions and potentially some plugins on one of these
computers, in order to, use the whole firefox configuration
(executable, profiles, extensions, extensions' settings,...) on all
the other computers by making the 'transportation' process as easy
as possible : that's why I thought about "one folder storage", this
folder being copied/pasted from the original computer to all the
others.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[Vrodok the Troll]

The setting you suggested leads indeed to a blank page when
firefox is launched.

Ah. Oopsie...