I’m old enough to still be amazed by technological advances – I’m like a small child when it comes to this. I doubt if I’ll ever lose this “starry eyed” view of technology. I certainly hope not.
I often think back to my first Hard Drive; which cost me $800 – 10 Megabytes with a seek time of 96 seconds. Yep, 10 Megabytes, not 10 Gigabytes. Today, a huge HD (two Terabytes), might set you back $150.
The USB Flash Drive has seen the same progression – massive increases in storage capabilities, coupled with giveaway prices. Not so long ago, my first flash drive ( 128 MB), cost me $50. Today, it’s easy to find a 4 GB flash drive for $5. I find that amazing!
The low cost of a flash drive gives us opportunities, in computing, that would have seemed like science fiction not long ago. Portable Apps Suite is a perfect example of these new opportunities.
With Portable Apps Suite, (free to use, free to copy, and free to share), you can carry your favorite portable computer programs with you on your USB flash drive, iPod, or portable hard drive, to school, work, or your hotel while you’re taking that much deserved vacation!
Portable Apps Suite allows you to play your media files, browse the net, compose documents, or check your email on the road. The applications can be used on any Windows computer, and on shut down, to insure your privacy, will not leave any traces on the host computer.
PAS is a collection of portable applications which includes, ClamWin Portable (antivirus), Mozilla Firefox Portable Edition (web browser), Gaim Portable (instant messaging), OpenOffice.org Portable (office suite) compatible with Microsoft Word files,
Sudoku Portable (puzzle game), Mozilla Sunbird Portable Edition (calendar/task manager) and Mozilla Thunderbird Portable Edition (email client), all preconfigured to work portably.
You can install any of three variations of Portable Apps Suite based on your preferences, or your USB drive’s capacity.
Standard Suite – All applications as noted above
Lite Suite – AbiWord Portable substituted for Open Office
Base Suite – Basic Menu Program – add only the applications you choose
All versions of the Portable Apps Suite include the integrated Portable Apps Menu and the Portable Apps Backup utility, along with a set of custom icons, auto play configuration, folders, and a quick start shortcut.
System Requirements: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Wine under Linux/UNIX/BSD/Mac OS X
Download at: PortableApps.com
Additional free portable applications, at PortableApps.com.
Firefox Accessibility Extension – Make Firefox more accessible
On-Screen Keyboard Portable – Easily access an on-screen keyboard
Virtual Magnifying Glass Portable – A full-featured screen magnifier
gVim Portable – advanced, feature-rich text editor
Notepad++ Portable – A full-featured text editor with syntax highlighting
NSIS Portable – Windows installer and launcher creation
Nvu Portable & KompoZer Portable – The easy-to-use Nvu web editor
PortableApps.com Installer – the easy way to package portable apps
XAMPP – Apache, mySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin, etc in one package
BPBible Portable – bible study tool
Celestia Portable – portable space simulator
Stellarium Portable – portable planetarium
AssaultCube Portable – fast-paced, online, first-person shooter
Atomic Tanks Portable – overly-powerful tanks blow each other up
Canabalt Portable (Freeware) – outrun the demolition of your city with just one button
DOSBox Portable – classic DOS games to go
Frets on Fire Portable – rock out anywhere with this Guitar Hero™-style game
Jooleem Portable – simple and addictive puzzle game with great music and visuals
LBreakout2 Portable – breakout-style arcade game similar to Arkanoid
Mines-Perfect Portable – a classic hunt-for-mines game with advanced features
PokerTH Portable – classic Texas Hold Em style poker at its best
Sudoku Portable – the wildly popular and addictive puzzle game
The Mana World Portable – a free, 2D, retro-style MMORPG
Tile World Portable – engaging and fast-paced tile-based puzzles
Warzone 2100 Portable – single or online multiplayer real-time strategy game
Blender Portable – 3D modelling, animation, rendering, post-production, playback
Cornice Portable – image viewer with slideshow
Dia Portable – full-featured diagramming tool
IcoFX Portable (Freeware) – full-featured icon editor
Inkscape Portable – vector graphics editor
GIMP Portable – Photo and Image Editor
XnView Portable (Freeware) – view, organize and convert photos
aMSN Portable – chat and video chat on MSN/Windows Live
DownThemAll! Extension (for Firefox) – download the files and images you want faster
FileZilla Portable – the full-featured FTP client
FireFTP Extension (for Firefox) – a lightweight extension
Google Chrome Portable (Freeware) – fast, simple, themeable browser
Miranda IM Portable – chat with AOL, MSN and Yahoo users in a customizable interface
Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition – the award-winning web browser that’s safe and secure
Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition – the handy email client
Nvu Portable & KompoZer Portable – the easy-to-use webpage editor
Pidgin Portable – chat with AOL, MSN and Yahoo users in an easy-to-use interface
PuTTY Portable – lightweight telnet and SSH client
Sage Extension (for Firefox) – A full-featured RSS extension
SeaMonkey, Portable Edition – complete internet suite (browser, email, chat, newsgroups)
Skype Portable (Freeware) – instant messaging, video chat and phone calls
µTorrent Portable (Freeware) – lightweight bittorrent client
WinSCP Portable – SFTP, FTP and SCP client
WinWGet Portable – take and manage your downloads on the go
Audacity Portable – A simple audio editor and recorder
BonkEnc Portable – extract, convert, and encode audio
CoolPlayer+ Portable – Lightweight, fast, easy-to-use audio player
DVDStyler Portable – DVD menu authoring tool
MPlayer Portable – Full-featured movie player with support for most video formats
Songbird Portable – Full-featured digital media library and player
VirtualDub Portable – video processing and capture utility
VLC Media Player Portable – An easy to use media player that plays most audio and video formats
AbiWord Portable – a lightweight word processor compatible with Microsoft Word files
Dia Portable – full-featured diagramming tool
Foxit Reader Portable (Freeware) – small and fast PDF reader
GnuCash Portable – accounting, expenses and financial management
Lightning Extension (for Thunderbird) – A lightweight extension for your calendar and tasks
Mozilla Sunbird, Portable Edition – Calendar and task management with a familiar interface
Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition (Address Book) – Email client’s built-in address book with import/export functions
OpenOffice.org Portable – word processor, spreadsheet, presentations with Microsoft compatibility
PDFTK Builder Portable – split, collate, watermark and password protect PDF documents
PNotes Portable – sticky notes to go
SpeedCrunch Portable – an intuitive algebraic calculator
Sumatra PDF Portable – a lightweight PDF viewer
Task Coach Portable – to do list and task manager
Mac-on-Stick (Freeware) – Run Mac OS Classic 7 portably
2X Client Portable (Freeware) – remote server and RDP access client
7-Zip Portable – File archiver and compressor
ClamWin Portable – Antivirus on the go
Command Prompt Portable – Simple link to a customizable command prompt
ConvertAll Portable – convert units of measurement
Eraser Portable – securely delete files and data
EraserDrop Portable – easily secure-erase files and data
FreeCommander Portable (Freeware) – easy-to-use windows file manager
InfraRecorder Portable – full-featured CD and DVD burner
Java Portable (Freeware) – Work with Java apps portably
Java Portable Launcher – Run Java JARs portably
JkDefrag Portable – Disk defragmentation and optimization
KeePass Password Safe Portable – Secure, easy-to-use password manager
Lightscreen Portable – easy to use screenshot tool
PeaZip Portable – Easy to use file archiver and compressor
PortableApps.com AppCompactor – shrink apps without affecting functionality
PortableApps.com Backup – integrated backup utility bundled with the platform
PortableApps.com Menu – integrated start menu bundled with the platform
SpyDLLRemover Portable (Freeware) – Spyware DLL detection and removal
TeamViewer Portable (Freeware) – remote PC support and screen-sharing
Toucan – backup, sync and encrypt for advanced users
WinDirStat Portable – disk usage analyzer and cleanup tool
winMd5Sum Portable – check md5 sums to verify files on the go
WinMerge Portable – file comparison and merging
Xenon File Manager Portable – portable file browser
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Hey Bill,
Great list of portable’s, some people install them on their hard drive since they have a smaller footprint then their “regular” iterations. I have been pretty bust lately, vacation, then catching up from vacation at work, but I hope to catch up on your posts, always worth my time.
Mark
PS I manged to get in some cross country skiing up in the Sierra, were having a great winter for once!
Hey Mark,
I wondered where you were – was thinking about you the night before last. I take it you mean you have lots of snow up in the Sierra. The Winter here has been the most unusual I can ever remember – very little snow. We had about 20 inches, or so, yesterday – a rare event this Winter. I had to shovel for the first time since mid December, versus almost 8 feet of snow by this time last year. People like Rick Robinette, (Whats on my PC), down in Maryland, have gotten all our snow. Yay!!
Interesting observation on portable installs on a HD – I’m one of those guys.
Best,
Bill
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An amazing collection of portable apps.
Thanks Bill,
Liam
Hey Liam,
There are some truly great apps in this collection.
Thanks for visiting.
Bill
Awesome list! As usual great article and resources that are truly useful.
Steve
Hi Steve,
Thank you – appreciate that from a pro like you.
Trust all is well at the College.
Best,
Bill
Great list of portable programs in portableapps.com. I’m already used some of them in my data drive to reduce the size of my system drive. I have some good freeware portable here portablefreeware.com.
Thanks sir Bill.
Hey Vhick,
Like you, I have some portable apps installed on my data drive – they work great.
Thanks for the link to portable freeware – a top site.
Best,
Bill
10MB for $800 ? You must have got in after the price crash Bill. 🙂
My first HD was a 10mb 5.25″ 2.5 height monstrosity which cost me $2400. (5.35″ 360k floppies were around $4 each at the time.) That’s the only piece I didn’t lose money on … a guy bought it about 15 years later for his “Technology Museum” for $2500.
I still have two “massive capacity” CDC Wren 40MB HDs which cost me $1120 each in an Amiga 2000 with 8MB ram which cost $330 per MB, and heaps of other stuff that I can replace with bigger/better/faster for 10% or less of what I paid for it.
Those are 1980s prices.
As technology powers ahead manufacturing costs (usually) come down, but cutting edge tech is always expensive when it first hits the streets.
I paid $170 for a 4GB USB flash drive a few years ago. I just did a quick scan on the web and found a (genuine, not Asian fake) Name Brand USB2 flash drive for $13.60.
Unless you’re a hardcore “must-have-the-very-latest-right-now” technofreak … WAIT! 🙂 🙂
Hey Rod,
It sounds like we’re coming from the same place, and that makes me feel less like a dinosaur. lol
Just one more “I remember” – (back in 82?) I bought a Tandy 1000 TX which cost me $3,800. Can’t remember the specs, but I now whine piteously when I have to pay $700 for a quad core!
Your point on “waiting” is well made. Personally, I’ve made that adjustment (not without some pain), and now I “wait”.
Best,
Bill
You can add other portable apps, e.g. Revo Uninstaller or CCleaner portable to the PAS menu.
Good point Adrian – thanks for this.
Bill
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Bill,
I see you got your dose of snow (and a lot of it)… Weather is warming here (for now)….
Hey, this is absolutely a great list of portable apps you have laid out here for us. Almost deserves its’ own page. Thanks for doing this, for I know I’ll be grabbing a few of them.
Rick
Hey Rick,
Glad to hear the weather is treating you folks a little better. Good point on the separate page – worth thinking about.
Bill