64-bit 'portable' Opera browser.....
Posted: Wed 01 Jan 2020, 19:01
Evening, all.
Looks like I'll have to eat my words..! Having clearly stated, only a couple of months back, that truly 'portable' versions of any of the Chromium-based 'clones' were impossible to build, I've gone and shot myself in the foot.....because here, after a certain amount of head-scratching, is
Opera 'portable'
....for your perusal & enjoyment.
I started thinking about this yesterday afternoon. By bedtime last night I'd got it pretty well 'fleshed-out' in my mind, though nothing concrete to show for it.
After a couple of false starts this morning, it turned out the wrapper-script was going to be a lot simpler than I thought, given that Opera themselves call the large, 'shared' library that contains the bulk of the browser directly from the .desktop entry . They don't actually use a wrapper script at all. We, however, have to use one in Puppy.....'cos otherwise our poor canine goes 'barking mad' trying (and failing) to get it going!
So it's simply a modification of the one in the SFS packages I published day before yesterday, along the lines of Fred's launch-script for portable-Quantum. (Cheers as always, Fred!)
-------------------------------------------------
It's the usual procedure. Download the tarball from my GoogleDrive, here:-
Opera-portable tarball
Unzip it, and move the 'Opera-portable' directory anywhere you like. Click to open it, and hit the 'LAUNCH' script. That's all there is to it.
------------------------------------------------
It'll take several seconds to fire up, because it first checks & updates PepperFlash if necessary.....the 'auto-updater' is built-in, and runs with the launch script. On the first run, it then creates the 'PROFILE' directory within, and populates it. (EDIT:- [02/01/20] Now changed; the Pepper update is triggered manually from a script beside LAUNCH, instead. Gxmessage advises you when the process is complete.)
WideVine is included, along with the 'libffmpeg' fix I garnered from the guys'n'gals over at the Opera forums.....so NetFlix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Spotify, etc., etc., will run OOTB.
Apart from the (necessarily) slow start, this thing runs fiendishly fast, and is a joy to use. I haven't yet tried out the built-in VPN, but you've got all sorts of other stuff built-in.....like the Telegram, WhatsApp & Facebook 'Messenger' services right there in the sidebar at the single click of a button. And more besides......including quite a lot of stuff I normally have to add to Chrome via extensions. It's all here.
----------------------------------------
This'll need more testing yet, before I definitely make my mind up.....but there's a strong possibility I may finally abandon Google Chrome; this thing really is that good. I'm beginning to understand what all the fuss was about with the older Operas.....
Watch this space.
Mike.
Looks like I'll have to eat my words..! Having clearly stated, only a couple of months back, that truly 'portable' versions of any of the Chromium-based 'clones' were impossible to build, I've gone and shot myself in the foot.....because here, after a certain amount of head-scratching, is
Opera 'portable'
....for your perusal & enjoyment.
I started thinking about this yesterday afternoon. By bedtime last night I'd got it pretty well 'fleshed-out' in my mind, though nothing concrete to show for it.
After a couple of false starts this morning, it turned out the wrapper-script was going to be a lot simpler than I thought, given that Opera themselves call the large, 'shared' library that contains the bulk of the browser directly from the .desktop entry . They don't actually use a wrapper script at all. We, however, have to use one in Puppy.....'cos otherwise our poor canine goes 'barking mad' trying (and failing) to get it going!
So it's simply a modification of the one in the SFS packages I published day before yesterday, along the lines of Fred's launch-script for portable-Quantum. (Cheers as always, Fred!)
-------------------------------------------------
It's the usual procedure. Download the tarball from my GoogleDrive, here:-
Opera-portable tarball
Unzip it, and move the 'Opera-portable' directory anywhere you like. Click to open it, and hit the 'LAUNCH' script. That's all there is to it.
------------------------------------------------
It'll take several seconds to fire up, because it first checks & updates PepperFlash if necessary.....the 'auto-updater' is built-in, and runs with the launch script. On the first run, it then creates the 'PROFILE' directory within, and populates it. (EDIT:- [02/01/20] Now changed; the Pepper update is triggered manually from a script beside LAUNCH, instead. Gxmessage advises you when the process is complete.)
WideVine is included, along with the 'libffmpeg' fix I garnered from the guys'n'gals over at the Opera forums.....so NetFlix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Spotify, etc., etc., will run OOTB.
Apart from the (necessarily) slow start, this thing runs fiendishly fast, and is a joy to use. I haven't yet tried out the built-in VPN, but you've got all sorts of other stuff built-in.....like the Telegram, WhatsApp & Facebook 'Messenger' services right there in the sidebar at the single click of a button. And more besides......including quite a lot of stuff I normally have to add to Chrome via extensions. It's all here.
----------------------------------------
This'll need more testing yet, before I definitely make my mind up.....but there's a strong possibility I may finally abandon Google Chrome; this thing really is that good. I'm beginning to understand what all the fuss was about with the older Operas.....
Watch this space.
Mike.