Essential Software: PortableApps Suite

Well.. I was having a look at the latest offerings on the PortableApps suite web site.  A lot of programs with reputation preceding them are included as portable versions in this suite. 

The Standard PortableApps installation package includes:

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition (web browser)
Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition (email client)
Mozilla Sunbird, Portable Edition (calendar/tasks)
ClamWin Portable (anti-virus)
Pidgin Portable (instant messaging)
Sumatra PDF Portable (PDF reader)
KeePass Password Safe Portable (password manager)
Sudoku Portable (game)
Mines-Perfect Portable (game)
CoolPlayer+ Portable (audio player)
OpenOffice.org Portable (office suite)
     – Writer (word processor)
     – Calc (spreadsheet)
     – Impress (presentations)
     – Base (database utility)
     – Draw (drawing)

PortableApps comes with the nifty PortableApps.com menu:

It also comes with the PortableApps.com Backup utility and can be set to auto-run (which will bring up the menu) when you insert the medium (flash drive or portable HDD). 

Tip: I actually use my 2Gig IPod Nano for my PortableApps installation.

False-Positives

The site says that some of the software can cause false-positives with your AV software.  This is due to the nature in which they have been coded for portability and shouldn’t present a problem (it’s just a false alarm).  This can be due to the AV writers not properly testing their software updates before releasing them.   

Here are a couple of online antivirus scanning sites to save you downloading and installing your own AV software:

VirusTotal 
Jotti

 

So many programs

A vast number of useful applications coded for portability have been made available for download from the site for use with the PortableApps suite.  Some of these include:

DOSBox Portable, PokerTH Portable, GIMP Portable, FileZilla Portable, PuTTY Portable, Sage Extension, Audacity Portable, VirtualDub Portable, VLC Media Player Portable, GnuCash Portable, Mac-on-Stick, 7-Zip Portable, Command Prompt Portable,  Eraser Portable, InfraRecorder Portable, JkDefrag Portable, 

 

Version Comparisons

There are 3 different packages of the software available for download:

Version	Platform only	Lite	Standard
Features	PortableApps BUP & Menu, Folders, Auto-run & Icons.	List at top of page – but with Abiword instead of Open Office.	The list at the top of the page.
Multilingual	True	English	English
Download size	1MB	35MB	113MB
Space Required	1.2MB	100MB	350MB
Storage Device	Any	256MB+	512MB+

System Requirements: Windows 95*/98/Me/2000/XP/Vista and Wine under Linux/UNIX/BSD/Mac OS X
*The base apps and some bundled apps will work under Windows 95

Here is the URL:
http://portableapps.com/