The title may sound a bit strange, but here's the deal: I recently set up Windows FLP without IE and forgot to make Firefox available offline. So I had to download it, but I didn't have a browser to do that. Solution: FTP.

Fire up the Command Prompt (Start/Run, "cmd", ENTER) and then enter these commands, each followed by ENTER:


Wait until the ftp> prompt reappears, then close with:


The file will have been downloaded to \Documents and Settings\<YourUserName>. The path given above downloads the English Windows version of Firefox 2.0.0.5, if you want another version, another language version, or if you run another OS, you'll have to assimilate the path and the file name accordingly.

Thats pretty sweet

Well... in FLP you can open ANY folder and type http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
It worked for me... Just because IE is still sitting there..

This could be useful for OPENSTEP, I have a browser (OmniWeb 3) and wget there now but I had to make a ISO with them to make it work.

FiFi: Yeah, but I think there's an option to completely remove it. IIRC this also disables stuff like help and those neat folder-options on the left.

Bit of a catch-22 if you only have one boxen availible, unless you included wget you can't download this guide so you can download Firefox (Opera) to view this guide...

Is there anyway to create an automatic batch file so when loaded, it automatically connects to the server and disconnects when the file is downloaded?

It even runs the setup once it's done.

EDITED: Left an extra line in there that wasn't needed. To use this, copy it into notepad and save it as something like getfirefox.bat

I don't think this will work, have you verified it? ftp won't accept the file without errors as it contains "illegal" commands, and what about the "del script.txt" command? If you name your file script.txt, it won't be executable. I'd rather do it this way:



Save it with a .bat (all MS-DOS/Windows systems) or .cmd (NT only) extension and you're done.

I tried a similar method, however the FTP app kept asking for a password, even though it was supplied. Not sure what happened there...

My script does work: the FTP program gets passed the batch file itself as its script. The first few lines of non-FTP commands it just gives a "bad command" error, then it processes the others up until the bye command. FTP disregards the rest of the script. Meanwhile, the rest of the script runs in CMD because it jumps over the FTP commands.

This site has a better explanation of what i'm trying to say


I must have accidentally left del script.txt in there from when I was trying to do it like you just posted, my bad. I'll fix that now.

Okay, this sounds like a good reason to use your script. Thanks for the explanation but I can perfectly understand what your script is doing as I'm quite familiar with batch scripts myself Yep, the "del script.txt" was just intriguing me as it would just have complained about the missing file. Maybe we should run ftp with ">NUL" because that would get rid of the error messages due to the wrong commands (but this will be muting all errors then).

This works.

Oddly enough, I can't tell you how many times I've had to do that.

you saved me dude


x132412312312 thnx

I've had to do that a couple of times.

-Twice, on virtual NT 3.51s (unmountable)
-Once, on Haiku (with wget)
-Once, on Windows XP lite (not sure which one)

That's real neat. But doesn't Windows always keep a copy of the Internet Explorer, so you can browse websites through your normal explorer window?

nice, i might try this on an old box i have. ditching ie saves room, but forgetting to make firefox accessible kinda negates that extra fiddle room

From my experience with FLP,

when I tried to go to www.google.com it just closed out the window..thats it.
So either its blocking IE from accessing web or explorer.exe is using a stripped down version of IE..

..but thats just my opinion..

Mozilla has an FTP server? Dang, how'd I miss that?

Mac OS X has a similar FTP command, so you can do this same technique if you want in the OS X Terminal. Also when the FTP command asks for a password you don't actually have to put anything in and it will still log you in.

Yes, like Netscape in its time ...
Microsoft also have a FTP.
But it hasn't been updated recently.

Awesome. I really needed this and couldn't find out for the life of me last week. Great find!

That's just plain cool. But I don't see why you couldn't use IE.

Theres an option in Windows FLP installer that won't install IE, so the OS is installed without a browser.

awesome nice trick