Firefox issues

[donecweb]

The back up, restoration and alteration process for Firefox is not stable or intuitive enough without extensive knowledge. It has taken me a very long time to acquire a method of installing, saving, backing up and restoring the program each time there is a problem or upgrade. Without having it feel like a disaster and requiring a complete re-install of the full program and extensions along with setting up the look and feel preferences I like. The process I use now should be built in and made more intuitive. I know I have more crashes than most people due to the way I work and what I do with the programs I have. I am always using many extensions and trying all the new stuff I can find and this causes problems. I also have an issue with the fact that to use the profile manager you have to use command line access. There should be a link (I feel stupid I had not thought of creating a link myself until I started telling you about it and just made one.) to load Firefox through the profile manager automatically created via the installation process of Firefox.

I now use a profile that is not the default and is saved in a different location than the program. I make a regular back up of the files and folders in my profile folder. I also use the Bookmark Backup extension to create a backup of the many Firefox environmental files along with my bookmarks. As of a few minutes ago I now have a link that starts Firefox via the profile manager. I download and save all my extensions to a special folder and then install them in Firefox by dragging them one at a time to an open Firefox window. This is not convenient but necessary since too often clicking on an extension to install it leads to either nothing happening or getting an error message or Netscape hijacking the extension and installing it in Netscape.

Yet Firefox with the extensions allows me to have features that other programs don't so I continue using it and hoping they will come out with a stable version that installs many good extensions with the installation or has their features built in. I know such a version would be much more bloated and probably much harder to keep secure and so will probably never happen.

This post has given me the idea of writing an article on the process setting up, restoring and saving a desired version of Firefox with extensions to provide a Firefox that is both stable and easily replaced or upgraded when things go wrong.

[SensoVision]

Hi Don, I was going to write long answer for your post and keep on leaving it for later, but instead I decide to post quick reply now and add more comments later if need
1. You've mentioned that after reinstalling system you have a hard time of reinstalling Firefox, in the times I've reinstalling my Windows I was using Mozilla and I don't have to re-install my extensions, I just leave a copy of Mozilla directory and all files found in Application Data which could be found in your Document and Settings folder under your profile, and that was enough to keep browser working just like before reinstall.

2. Backing up your bookmarks even easier, you can transfer them on any PC or browser, by simply copying bookmarks.html from profile directory.

BTW in Linux all extensions are stored inside profile folder in my home directory so as long as I have it with me I could have my browser with all bookmarks cookies and extensions on any PC. I don't remember if extensions are stored in the same way in Windows...

[donecweb]

Do you use the default profile or did you create your own profile?

[SensoVision]

I think that was using default profile and simply copy all files from backup there... but I couldn't be 100% sure... in Linux I don't recreate anything, I only have default profile and when I copied it to another user it work without any problems.

[donecweb]

Another reason for Linux. I'm still checking it out when I have time but no real questions yet.