How to: Make Firefox 3 Alpha 6 (or any pre-release version for that matter) portable

Now that Firefox 3 is approaching its beta milestone, more and more people are enthusiastic about trying out its new features. In a previous post, I mentioned some of the novelties Gran Paradiso Alpha 6 offers. Now, I will teach you how to make this new and improved version of Firefox portable so you can run it from a USB flash drive or an iPod on any Windows or Linux-with-Wine computer.

Step 1: Get Firefox Portable

Go to the PortableApps website and download the current (2.0.0.4) version of Firefox Portable.

Run the installer and extract Firefox Portable to any directory you want, like your flashdrive. For the purposes of this tutorial, this directory will be G:\FirefoxPortable

Step 2: Download and install Firefox pre-release version

This can be Gran Paradiso Alpha 6, or the latest Minefield Nightly Build, or any other version of Firefox that you want.

If you downloaded a Win32 .exe installer, just install it on any folder in your computer, say C:\Program Files\Gran Paradiso.

If you downloaded the Nightly Build in the .zip archive, it's even easier. Just unzip it to the most convenient location you have at hand, like your desktop.

Step 3: Delete Firefox 2 files from Firefox Portable

Go to the place where you installed Firefox Portable (say, G:\FirefoxPortable) and delete every file in the \App\firefox directory. That will leave you with just the Firefox Portable launcher, but no Firefox program.

Step 4: Copy pre-relase files to Firefox Portable

Go to the folder where you installed Gran Paradiso or Minefield and copy all the files there to the G:\FirefoxPortable\App\firefox directory (or wherever you installed Firefox Portable).

Step 5: Enjoy!

That's it. Just run the FirefoxPortable.exe launcher now, and after a couple of seconds Gran Paradiso or Minefield should start.

So, to sum it all up...

1. Download & install Firefox Portable


2. Download & install Minefield or Gran Paradiso


3. Replace Firefox 2 files with pre-release files on Firefox Portable

Hope this was helpful, and remember: only use Alpha and pre-Alpha software at your own risk!