The Pale Moon Project - Custom-built and optimized Firefox browsers for Windows Operating Systems

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You can now take Pale Moon anywhere with you!

You've enjoyed Pale Moon at home, or at the office. You've wondered if you could use it elsewhere: in a library, on a public computer, in a cybercafé... You need something portable, that is as simple as plugging in your USB stick and running your favourite browser, with all your bookmarks and passwords at your fingertips? Then here is the answer: Pale Moon Portable!
Following the trend of other browsers, I have created a portable installation, which, thanks to winPenPack's X-launcher, is completely self-contained. Nothing is stored on the host computer, everything stays neatly where it belongs: on your stick.

Note that portable applications are not meant to have file/URL associations with the desktop.
If you require desktop integration, it is recommended that you do not use Pale Moon Portable, but the normal version instead!

How do I use this?

Three simple steps:
  1. Download the Pale Moon Portable file (below)
  2. Extract the contents of the file to your USB stick in a folder of your choice:
    In case of ZIP: use your favorite unzipper, or Windows Compressed Folders
    In case of EXE (later versions): Run the file and tell it where to unpack
  3. Run palemoon-portable.exe
That's it! Simple enough?
The first time you run Pale Moon Portable, it may take a fairly long time to load, because it creates a new personal profile on your USB stick for you. This can take some time, also depending on the speed of your stick - up to 30 seconds, usually. After that, it will be much faster to start.

Of course, you don't have to use a USB stick, any writable medium would work: External harddisk, a networked drive, even an MP3 player if it allows you to access it as a drive in Windows.
Do note however that Pale Moon Portable doesn't run from read-only media like CD-ROM or DVD-ROM; it needs write access to the location it is run from.

I already have an earlier version of palemoon-portable. How do I upgrade?

Since Pale Moon Portable comes in a "virgin" state, you can simply download and overwrite an existing Pale Moon Portable folder with the files from a newer version. Your user profile will remain untouched as it doesn't exist in a freshly extracted Pale Moon Portable.

Note on using Pale Moon's internal updater: You can also use "Check for updates" in Pale Moon Portable itself, but this will only update the browser, not the portable shell. On occasion (infrequently) some changes are made to the shell to provide improvements or updates. You will not get these changes if you use the internal updater, and this -may- cause problems or inconsistencies with documentation. Before you ask for support for an issue, always first try to use the full portable package if you have used the internal updater of the browser. Also, on occasion, updates are made that are specific only to the portable version, which will not be picked up by the internal updater. Also note that using the internal updater, you will lose the more compact libraries to be replaced with standard libraries and the browser will therefore use more space on your stick/medium.

Optional (advanced): If you are afraid it may still overwrite something you don't want it to, then the alternative is to download the standard Pale Moon ZIP file (not the portable one), and replace the Pale Moon folder in \bin\ with the one from the ZIP file. You could simply overwrite, but I recommend you remove the old files first before you extract the new ones. The same note here as for using the internal updater: you will only update the browser, and not the portable shell. Here, too, you will get standard, non-compacted libraries.

Download links:

IMPORTANT: You are NOT allowed to redistribute the portable if you have made ANY changes to the archive! You are ONLY allowed to redistribute the binary package if it's completely unaltered! For any other redistribution, e.g. with added extensions, languages, plugins, tools, etc., you MUST get permission beforehand. Full details in the redistribution policy.

9.1:
9.1 updates the main browser in the package to version 9.1. As with previous versions this one has been compacted to take as little space on your stick as possible. Full details for the included browser can be found in the release notes of 9.1. File size is approximately 14 MB (EXE):
SHA-1: fa9fdac520c3d6c9a346051eb6ddc15703b254b7
PGP Signature: [Sig]

9.1-x64: 64-bit version of the launcher and browser for x64 Windows. Keep in mind that the same restrictions apply to this as to the desktop 64-bit version with regard to availability of media plug-ins, etc.
Due to limitations of available executable code packers, this version will need more space on your stick than the 32-bit portable version.
File size is approximately 14 MB (EXE):
SHA-1: 03dd5a3bba3d56104b96909ddda5e27acc6f8aaa
PGP Signature: [Sig]

3.6.29:
3.6.29 incorporates an update of the main browser in it to the same version. Full details about the included browser can be found in the release notes. As with previous versions this one has been compacted to take as little space on your stick as possible. File size is approximately 10 MB (EXE):
SHA-1: fc5a4bacf6331a0b50bcec30a481ec1e4a657f4c
PGP Signature: [Sig]

Please go to the main page if you are looking for a standard (desktop/laptop/netbook) version.

Advanced options:

If you run Pale Moon Portable from your harddisk (to keep it self-contained), you may want to enable the disk cache and xul cache for better performance. Be aware that the Portable version will not provide file associations unless you specifically make them, yourself.

To enable caching, find the appropriate section in Palemoon-Portable.ini, under "Global Preferences":

;(enable cache)
browser.cache.disk.enable=false  --> Change this to "true"
;(disable XUL cache)
nglayout.debug.disable_xul_cache=true  --> Change this to "false"

Also, under [Functions], find:
FileDelete=%MOZ_PROFILE_PATH%\compreg.dat;Xul.mfl;XPC.mfl
and delete the part ";Xul.mfl;XPC.mfl", leaving:
FileDelete=%MOZ_PROFILE_PATH%\compreg.dat

By default, these settings will store the disk cache as a subdirectory of your profile called Cache.
If you prefer to have the cache in a different directory instead, change the following:

;(cache directory)
browser.cache.disk.parent_directory=%MOZ_PROFILE_PATH%|\\"

to a directory of your choice, for example:

browser.cache.disk.parent_directory="C:\Pale Moon Cache"


If you want to use Pale Moon portable to test a different version of Pale Moon while you already have one installed (e.g. new version check, check for compatibilities of add-ons with a major release, etc.) and want to run multiple different versions at the same time, find the following lines in palemoon-portable.ini:

[Environment]
;(multiple istances)
;MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1

and remove the semicolon in front of MOZ_NO_REMOTE
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