Muffinresearch Labs by Stuart Colville

Run Firefox 2.0 and 1.5 side by side | 10 Comments

Posted in Browsers on 25th October 2006, 12:28 pm by

If you want to run Firefox 2.0 and Firefox 1.5 side by side you can with a Portable Firefox for both Mac and Windows. These applications allow you to keep separate profiles so you effective keep the older version of firefox as a standalone with a copy of your current profile.

Update: I’ve updated the mac instructions – 27/10/06

Instructions for mac (OSX 10.4+ only):

Note: To save yourself the trouble of carrying out steps 1-9 you can download a custom version of Portable firefox with the script fix and the Firefox 1.5.0.7 already inside the Portable Firefox.app. All you need to do then is run it and copy your profile across as per steps 10-14.

  1. Back-up your current firefox 1.5 profile found in /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default first.
  2. Next download portable PortableFirefox_2.0_en-US-OSX_r4.0 from http://www.freesmug.org/portableapps/firefox/
  3. Download Firefox 1.5.0.7 from http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/1.5.0.7/
  4. Open the PortableFirefox_2.0_en-US-OSX_r4.0.dmg and drag the Portable Firefox folder to your Desktop.
  5. Open Firefox 1.5.0.7.dmg
  6. Open the Portable Firefox folder on your desktop.
  7. Right Click Portable Firefox.app and select “Show package contents”
  8. Copy the the Firefox.app from the mounted Firefox 1.5.0.7.dmg into Content/Resources/ of the Portable Firefox.app package.
  9. Next edit the script file and comment out (with a #) the line quitapp at the bottom of the file
  10. Run Portable Firefox.app
  11. You will be asked do you want to copy an existing profile. Click copy, and then select the 1.5 profile to be copied.
  12. Once this is done successfully firefox 1.5.0.7 will open.
  13. Once you are happy quit this version of firefox and drag the Portable Firefox.app into your applications folder. If you want by all means rename it to Firefox.1.5.app
  14. Next download and install firefox 2.0 in the usual way by dragging the firefox.app into applcations overwriting the old firefox.app If you want to be super careful you can rename the 1.5 firefox.app first so that it make rolling back easier (you did keep a copy of your profile right?) .

Instructions for mac:

  1. Back-up your current firefox 1.5 profile found in /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default first.
  2. Next download portable firefox (Portable Firefox_1.5.0.7_en-US-OSX_r3.0.dmg) from http://www.freesmug.org/portableapps/firefox/
  3. Open the .dmg and drag the portable firefox folder to your applications directory.
  4. Copy the 1.5 profile you just backed up to /Applications/Portable Firefox OS X/app/
  5. Rename the profile directory in /Applications/Portable Firefox OS X/app/
  6. Rename the profile you copied to profile
  7. Test the standalone firefox 1.5.0.7
  8. Next download and install firefox 2.0 in the usual way by dragging the firefox.app into applcations overwriting the old firefox.app If you want to be super careful you can rename the 1.5 firefox.app first so that it make rolling back easier (you did keep a copy of your profile right?) .
  9. Finally Drag the “OPEN Portable Firefox OSX.app” from /Applications/Portable Firefox OS X/ to your dock to run the standalone.

Instructions for PC:

  1. Backup your current profile at C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxx.default
  2. Download portable firefox from http://portableapps.com/news/2006-09-26_-_firefox_portable_1.5.0.7
  3. Double click the .exe you’ve just downloaded. I recommend saving it to C:\Program Files\ the installer will create the directory FirefoxPortable for you in the location you specify
  4. Copy the backed up firefox 1.5.0.7 profile to C:\Program Files\FirefoxPortable\Data\
  5. Rename C:\Program Files\FirefoxPortable\Data\profile to profile.old
  6. Rename your copied profile C:\Program Files\FirefoxPortable\Data\xxxxxx.default to profile
  7. Test the installation by running: C:\Program Files\FirefoxPortable\FirefoxPortable.exe
  8. Download and install firefox 2.0 over your original firefox installation. Make sure you keep a separate copy of your profile handy incase you need to roll back to 1.5.

The only downside with the windows version is that you can’t run both portable firefox 1.5 and firefox 2.0 at exactly the same time but I guess I can live with that. PortableFirefox complains when Firefox 2.0 is already open and if you open firefox 2.0 when the portable app is open Firefox ends up loooking like firefox 1.5!

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  • http://www.shapeshed.com George

    Blast! This is a much more elegant solution than the one I found yesterday…

    This was to save the different versions as Firefox-1.0.app, Firefox-1.5.app, Firefox-2.0.app in the Applicaitons folder, create a different profile for each version and then use terminal to launch the profile manager to run standalone versions.

    To launch older versions I use the following in Terminal:
    Firefox 1
    /Applications/Firefox-1.0.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -Profilemanager

    Firefox 1.5
    /Applications/Firefox-1.5.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -Profilemanager

    It works really well but your solution looks easier so I’ll update to that in due course.

    On windows I just save versions in different folders and have not had any problems to date.

  • http://muffinresearch.co.uk Stuart Colville

    @George: If you just rename the folders in Windows doesn’t that mean that each version will use the same profile? Or can you change that in the profile manager?

  • http://nerdcereal.com/blog sean

    Thanks for the instructions!

  • http://www.freesmug.org Gand

    I’ve just release Portable Firefox 2.0r4.0, anyway previous release is also available.
    With this last release you can copy your profile saying yes at “Copy local profile” window and select your profile folder. Now Firefox application and profile folder are inside the application bundle.
    I think that you can downgrade Portable Firefox r4.0 replacing the included Firefox 2.0 with 1.5.0.7 or what ever version you like; but note that r4.0 need OS X 10.4.
    If you wish run multiple version you have to edit script file commenting with # the line with “quitapp” at the end of the file. Remember to back-up your profile folder.

  • http://muffinresearch.co.uk Stuart Colville

    @Gand: Great work. I’ve updated the mac instructions above to reflect this newer version.

  • http://milo.peety-passion.com milo

    Thanks for the instructions, used it like described and everything works fine.

  • http://www.shapeshed.com George

    Yes you are right – I can’t run versions side by side on Windows using that method.

    You may have this already but Yousif Al Saif of http://tredosoft.com has recently released an installer that will install standalone versions of IE3 – 6. Really useful for testing sites.

  • http://tommytaylor.co.uk Tom Taylor

    Firefox 3 Alpha has just been released. WOOHOO!

    So you mayswell install Firefox 2 as a portable version too: http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

    And then install FF3 from here: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/?C=M;O=D

    Follow the Instructions for ‘Your Platform’ above :)

  • estrai

    Hey,
    I just did like George said (run with profile manager), except that I used another directory for storing profiles for Firefox 1.5.
    So, now I have running both 2.0 and 1.5, and after I picked the directory there’s no need to do it again, it always start without prompting for choosing anything.
    It looks very funny while I’m switching programs with alt+tab :)

  • derek

    For PC users with IE7 already using VirtualPC to test IE6, would it not be just as handy to install FF 1.5 on the VPC?

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