5 Great Applications to Store on a Portable Device
Portability has become an integral part of our computer use with memory prices dropped drastically and continuing to do so over the years. Thus, more and more applications developed today are built for portability and independence so that they can simply be executed from any computer. This is done mainly by storing preferences in a file within the folder of the application instead of the registry. Several applications have been made portable by different publishers. PortableApps is by far the best publisher that develops portable versions of software. All applications are free. Below are 5 applications which can be very handy on your portable device.
Firefox is without a doubt one of the best browsers available today if not the best. Firefox is quickly gaining market share and if you use Firefox on your computer you can download the portable version and store it on your storage device and access it anywhere. With services such as Xmarks and Firefox Sync, you can keep all data on your portable version synchronized with your primary personal computer. The portable version is developed by PortableApps.
This is a handy tool that lets you split and merge files. This can be very useful when you're on the go and you need to copy a large file but lack the space. Using File Splitter you can copy the file to your destination in parts and seamlessly join them once you're gone. The application is simple and doesn't have any preferences. It is also standalone so it pretty much has been developed as a portable version.
The internet contains media of various different file formats and VLC is one of the best media players available today that supports virtually all these formats. When you're on a public or shared computer however, different media players maybe installed and sometimes files downloaded or transferred from a media device might not be able to be played on that computer due to the unavailability of the codec. Thanks to PortableApps, you can now carry the portable version of VLC wherever you go and you can save yourself from the codec wars we so often face.
4. Foxit Reader
PDFs are extensively used for several purposes be it for online manuals or ebooks. Surprisingly, a good percentage of people don't have a PDF reader installed as it isn't a native feature on operating systems. Foxit, the Adobe Reader alternative has a portable version that lets you carry the application with you wherever you go. So, the next time you're at an internet cafe and unable to open a PDF file you can use the portable version of Foxit.
WinRAR has quickly surpassed the pioneer winzip in terms of compression simply due to excellence. WinRAR is faster at compressing and extracting and has a better compression algorithm making it the compression tool of choice for many. A lot of files online are packaged as a RAR file however sometimes on a public or shared computer the application may not be installed. Being mindful of this, the developers of WinRAR have developed a portable version known as WinRAR unplugged to access WinRAR on a portable device wherever you go. In addition to being able to access files anywhere, it can be used to compress large files easily which makes it more convenient to transfer files when you're on the move.
Well, there you have it. Those are by far the most important and useful tools that should surely come in handy especially if you use shared or public computers often. If you have any other suggestions please leave it in the comments.
