A little bit of history

Portable applications are popular and widely known to most computer techies. It has gone to a stage that any software can be created as portable applications. I have only discovered it about two years back and I have not been using it extensively until I joined this company last December.

Most of the portable applications are designed to consume less memory and hard disk spaces compared to the original applications where you need to go through an installation process. The beauty of portable applications is to allow users to run a program as it is without any installation needed.

Portable applications that are legal and published in Portableapps.com resemble the folder structure in Document and Settings. Portable applications created other than the ones in Portableapps.com normally come with only a single executable file.

1. They are portable

As the name says for itself, all the applications are portable. No installations are needed. Basically, the portable applications are being compressed into extractable files and when a user double-clicks the file, it will extract the packed files to the user specified directory. The directory can be left on the computer or moved to thumbdrives as well as external drives, iPod, MP3s and Mp4s. The idea of being portable is that the portable application's directory can be copied to any types of storage media and it will still work.

2. Secure in thumbdrives

Most thumbdrives come with encryption or password protection. My Kingston DT Mini 4GB comes with synchronization software but without password protection or file encryption. On the other hand, my SanDisk Cruzer comes with password protection but without synchronization software. However, you can easily find freeware to synchronize your thumbdrives' data with your computer as well as protecting your thumbdrives from unauthorized access.

In the past, no one thought about portable applications. Even when memory cards and thumbdrives are introduced, people are just using them for storing data or sensitive data. Hence, thumbdrives offer both security and portability which suit best to use with portable applications.

Say, if you are used to using Firefox internet browser, you will definitely fond of using Firefox Portable. All the functionalities and interface remain the same in the portable version. However, you can safely choose to remember every password for every secure site you log in everyday. Then all the information is safely protected by the thumbdrives' security. Well, in order to be more secure, make sure that you do not lose your thumbdrive.

3 Secure in any computer

Honestly, I love Firefox internet browser even though it consumes a lot of memory. I use it wherever I go and which is why I keep my thumbdrive close to me. So, what happen if I come to use a computer without Firefox and I do not have my thumbdrive with me? Worry not. I can just download a copy of Firefox Portable and extract it on the desktop. Off I go then. When my session of browsing finishes, all I need to do is to just delete the folder.

On the other hand, if I have my thumbdrive with me, I can just plug my thumbdrive, launch Firefox Portable and start browsing. The difference is all my passwords are stored in my thumbdrive and I can browse effortlessly without having the difficulty to remember each and every password that I am using for different sites.

4. Clean Registry

Some of my friends are very particular on the type of programs that are going to be installed on their computer. Well, I am one of them too. I try not to install programs which I do not use frequently. The reason being not to heavy load my registry with useless entries that a program may have created. Most of the time, uninstallation does not help as the process only removes the files and not the registry entries.

Hence, using portable applications will not leave any registry entries mark and once deleted, they are all gone.

5. Variety of programs

Let me list out the available programs' categories. - accessibility - development - education - games - graphics & pictures - internet - music & video - office - operating systems - utilities

With this list of categories, there are more than 30 portable programs for you to do your daily job. I worked as a system administrator in the past. Thus, I had the control to install any software into my office computer. However, I am only a normal user now but with portable applications, I do not have to have the administrator rights to use my favourite programs.

Search deep into the internet and you will find a lot more portable applications which are not listed in Portableapps.com. Bear in mind that not all the portable applications other than the ones listed in Portableapps.com are legal to use.

6. Free

Portable applications are FREE to use. That is the word that we all like and want to hear. From Portableapps.com, you will get the most updated portable applications that are free and legal to use. As I mentioned, if you search deep into the internet, you can find better portable applications but they may not be legal copies. However, you can create your own portable applications with some free tools available for download as well as instructions.

Verdict

I am almost certain that I cannot do my job without portable applications. I mean personal job. All I need to do is to plugin my thumbdrive into any computer and my data will be loaded. Once unplugged, none of my sensitive data will be stored in that other computer.

The performance of the thumbdrives affects the performance of portable applications. Comparing both of my thumbdrives; a Sandisk Cruzer and a Kingston Data Mini, Sandisk works better with portable applications. If you believe that your portable applications' performance is affected by your thumbdrive, copy the portable applications' folder to the hard disk, do whatever you need to do and copy the folder back to your thumbdrive. You will still get the same changes, settings and configurations that you have made when using the portable applications on the hard disk. But, remember to delete the portable applications left on the hard disk.

Visit My Ideas 4 You for more articles.