Firefox: handle non-standard profile locations

[DavidHB]

When I installed CCleaner, it recognised that I had Firefox installed, but could not find the files in the profile. I guess (which is why I'm posting here and not reporting a bug) that CCleaner only looks for the Firefox profile in the default location, whereas I keep my profile on a separate data drive.

 

I cannot find a way (other than including the files manually, which is a bit cumbersome) to get CCleaner to identify my profile location. Would it be possible to add this capability, either by parsing the profiles.ini file, or just adding a setting somewhere?

 

I apologise in advance if I've missed something; if I have, I should be grateful if someone could set me right.

 

David

[mr don]

Yes, this would be cumbersome.

 

Firefox in it's default location is easy enough to detect trash to remove.

Firefox in an external drive, multiple external drives, tons of folders, zip files, portable configs, older versions, newer versions...

 

The amount of checks they would have to have for checking for each version of FF that is wildly different, in addition to having to check every drive...

 

I would think it is close to impossible.

Don't write it off yet, or give up hope...

 

Maybe I missed something?

[DavidHB]

Yes, this would be cumbersome ... Firefox in it's default location is easy enough to detect trash to remove. Firefox in an external drive, multiple external drives, tons of folders, zip files, portable configs, older versions, newer versions...

Not necessarily, depending on your definition of 'cumbersome'.

 

Each OS/version of Firefox has, as you say, a default profile location; actually the locations vary more between OS versions than versions of Firefox. CCleaner already has to 'know' these locations to do what it does. In the default location, there is always a profiles.ini file which tells Firefox where to look for the profile; it is by editing this file that you point Firefox to an alternative location.

 

So either CCleaner could read this file (not, considering the sophistication of the program, a hard task for the Piriform team to code), or there could just be a setting to change the location; there already appears to be a Registry key that could host the relevant value.

 

David