Best Free Portable Applications

Portable apps are an amazing development. I keep about 800 MB of them currently. I haven't tried them all, and some will no doubt get instantly deleted once I run them and inhale their silliness. I have also had much luck. This list helps you improve the odds of getting lucky since it provides the best portable apps across Gizmo's Freeware.

Portable apps allow me to keep every piece of free software that impresses me, and it frees me from worrying about which programs to keep. I used to spend countless hours minimizing the number of programs on my machine, but now I keep a sizable collection of portable apps at the ready. You can become a collector of specialized apps, keep them to quickly do the same tasks bulkier programs accomplish, and without all the extra features you rarely use. Though sometimes you find bulky programs going portable too. It's getting very popular and forcing software vendors to adjust their wasteful ways.

Some people are more pragmatic than me and they use them on public terminals to avoid leaving personal information behind. As you surf around the Internet, entering passwords, and chatting with your friends, all your important data gets saved somewhere on the computer you use. It's very difficult to delete your data once its on a computer. But most portable apps leave their information on your flash drive and not on the computer you use, so you take your data with you too.

For an introduction to portable software, read the Guide to Portable Applications.

If you want to help improve this list please visit the forum or add a comment at the end. Enjoy!


My favorite portable apps suite is the aptly named PortableApps Suite. Its 46 MB Light and 124 MB Standard suites are very selective and attempt to choose the 12-13 best software. I deleted all but four, which I admit is not a very good keep to delete ratio at only 30.7%, but a baseball player would like having the .307 average. By the way, I kept Firefox, Thunderbird (but I haven't used it or opened it yet), OpenOffice, and Mines-Perfect (very addictive). The website support answered all my questions. I had no problem using its launcher to not only add some of its recommended apps but also the one's we recommend here at Gizmo's Freeware. It has two major negatives, however, including the odd PAF.EXE download format of its apps and the hoops you have to jump through to delete custom EXE files from the launcher (or to add them back). The online support provides simple answers but, still, it should be easier.

As several visitors recommended in the comments, try geek.menu if you need a portable apps launcher with more features.


Best Free Portable Anti-Malware

Best Free Portable Firefox Addons for Internet Security and Browser Protection

Best Free Portable Anonymous Surfing

Best Free Portable Encryption

Best Free Portable Password Manager


Best Free Portable PC Tune-up or All-in-One Utilities

Best Free Portable Defrag

Best Free Portable File Cleaner & Registry Cleaner

Best Portable Secure Erase Utility

Best Free Portable Registry Editor

Best Free Portable Startup Manager

Best Free Portable Duplicate File Detector

Best Free Portable File Recovery

Best Free Portable Windows Tweaker or Uninstaller

Best Free Portable Bookmark Cleaner

  • AM-DeadLink - from http [COLON] //portablefreeware [DOT] com/?id=1430

Best Free Portable File Archiver/Zip Utility

Best Free Portable Free Folder Sync or Backup

Best Free Portable File Manager

Best Free Portable Software Updater

Best Free Portable Process Viewer

Best Free Portable System Information Utility

Best Free Portable Disk Analyzer

Best Free Portable Rename Utility

Best Free Portable Screen Capture Utility

Best Free Portable Hotkey/Macro Recorder Utility

Best Free Portable Resource Meter

Best Free Portable TCP Settings Tweaker


Best Free Portable Media Player

Best Free Portable Music Player

  • Jaangle (Extract the 'files only' version.)
  • AIMP 2 (Choose portable version during setup. Also rips, tags, converts.)

Portable Radio Player

Best Free Portable MP3 Tag Editor

Best Free Portable CD/DVD Burning Software

Best Free Portable CD Ripper / Converter

Best Free Audio / Video Editor

Best Free Portable Digital Image Viewer

Best Free Portable Digital Editor

Best Free Portable Color Picker


Best Free Portable Office Suite / Word Processors

Best Free Portable PDF Reader

Best Free Portable Text Editor

Best Free Portable PIM

Best Free Portable Sticky Notes

  • PNotes Portable
  • Stickies (Portable Version Available: see instructions at http [COLON] //portablefreeware [DOT] com/?id=264)

Best Free Portable Search and Replace Utility

Best Free Portable Outliner

Best Free Portable Program Launcher

Best Free Portable Desktop Search

Best Free Portable Clipboard Replacement


Best Free Portable Web Browser

Best Free Portable Email Client

Best Free Portable Thunderbird Extensions

Best Free Portable Download Manager

Best Free Portable HTML Editor

Best Free Portable BitTorrent Client

Best Free Portable FTP Client

Best Free Portable Website Ripper

Best Free Portable Download/Upload Meter


Portable Astronomy Tools

Portable Dictionary and Thesaurus


Portable OS for Windows


Additionally, here are some lists and suites of portable software:

  • Portablefreeware [DOT] com (One of the very best all around: good installation tips, download links, and popularity ratings.)
  • Apps To Go (Short list of exceptional apps.)
  • Lupo PenSuite (Provides an impressive number of apps, similar to PortableApps Suite, but some apps in it are antivirus unfriendly -- false positives, yes, but it seems to lack a bit of professionalism leaving them in there.)
  • WinPenPack (There are some interesting and diverse picks in this one.)
  • Sysinternals Suite (Highly respected set of utilities. See the top ten list if you don't need all of them.)

This category is maintained by volunteer editor Rizar.

 

Tags for this list: free portable apps, Gizmo's portable apps.

4.61111
Average: 4.6 (18 votes)
Your rating: None

Hello

May I suggest :
Portable email client : Koma-mail. Excellent email client and certainly lighter than Thunderbird.

Portable File Manager : Q-dir can provide until 4 panes + a treeview ... if your screen is big enough :)

Portable Music Player : XMPlay. Small audio player reading a lot of format (including tracker format XM,S3M,IT,MOD), skin-able and visual (as WinAmp).

ericc

Hi guys,
Portable Softwares are really convenient to everyone because of its characteristic (without installization). I prefer test new sw but sometimes it’s really hard and take many times to install them. But portable sw, I can do them easier . Oh, I know a web which contains many portable sws and i guess that it’s interested w/ you. You can download @ [link removed]
Have fun
ridoncular

Moderator comment: Link removed as it was rated dangerous by WOT.

Heres another free portable apps site/list; http://www.pendriveapps.com/ - seems uptodate, and has a Portable Linux section.

Wavosaur is a portable free audio editor: http://www.wavosaur.com/
MozBackup is a free Mozilla back up utility that has a portable version: http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/

RoboForm2Go?

With regard to
Best Free Portable PC Tune-up or All-in-One Utilities
* Comodo System Cleaner
* Glary Utilities
* Advanced SystemCare
and Best Free Portable File Cleaner & Registry Cleaner
* CCleaner Portable (Also securely erases.)
* Easy Cleaner
* PureRa (specialized file cleaner)
All these programs find LARGE numbers of 'junk' files, etc. that they suggest you delete. Once these files are deleted, there is no easy way to recover them. So, how safe would it be to let them delete all 'junk' files they find? Do any of these programs delete files that are actually not 'junk'? How do you identify files that must NOT be deleted??

Perry_Masonmint

xyplorer is the 2nd best file manager and it is portable.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-file-manager.htm

Why isn't it mentioned here?

I've recently tried portableapps http://portableapps.com/ which is a nicely designed portable software suite but found it lacking when it came to menu organisation and adding custom folders - until I found geek.menu, problem solved! - certainly worth checking out.
http://geek-menu.sourceforge.net/

Alternatively, another great choice would be PStart - a fantastic application for accessing your portable apps etc.
http://www.pegtop.net/start/

They're both so good, I'll probably end up using both!

It is a little difficult to add custom folders and programs to PortableApps.

But you can create a new folder under the PortableApps directory (with the other Portable Apps-specific programs) and extract the files to that folder.

I was able to attach all my portable programs to its launcher.

Except some programs have many executables, so in the interface you have to change the name of programs you don't want in the launcher interface to a dash or minus sign. You do a right-click on the item you don't want and it will allow you to change its name to "-". They say they will have better features to customize programs on the interface in the future.

PortableApps, I noticed, also has a built-in backup program too.

geek.menu lets you hide items that you don't want showing. This would same the trouble of the "-" sign.

Pretty nice stuff for anyone's USB stick...
Thanks...

Sorry forgot to post my name..

in case u want to prevent viruses automatically running into ur pendrive everytime u plug it in.. u may want to try this handy utility called NIN0JA PENDISK. It is a zero-configuration program.
its download link is http://nunobrito.eu/ninja/

Hi

I think:

2: DrWeb Cureit
3: A Squared USB
6: A Squared USB
7: Panda Anti-rootkit
9: XB Browser/OperaTor
11: XYPlorer free
18: Adblock Plus
26: Easy Cleaner or Eusing Free Registry Cleaner

8 is rather strange. If by HIPS you mean behavioural blocker, which I think you do, it makes no sense. Because the whole point of behavioural blockers are that it is constantly running analysing the behaviour of process. So even if you have a USB/removable hard drive permanently connected to your computer, it will still always use memory. So it would be the same as installing it. Unless your computer was so full that you cannot use an extra ~50 mbs. If so, you should probably buy a removable hard drive or a new computer.

I would recommend the portable version of Xplorer2 for best free portable file manager in section 11. I use it on mu USB thumb drive and on my machines. It works great. Dual pane and tabbed.

I'm waiting for "The best free mobile software" (or the best free smartphoneware) section.
Magal

The thing is, there are already so many good sites that list good freeware for pda's and smartphones. 1src.com and pda247.com are two places that come to mind. With sites like these available, I think it would be a duplication of effort to list ALL the good software out there for them.

nice site dude

I used Opera USB but found that Opera Portable is much better and it incinerates your tracks on the host PC!

http://www.kejut.com/operaportable

A few thoughts:

I'd put Irfanview in category 20 not 21 -- it can do some image tweaking and file conversion, but it's not really designed to be an editor, I'd have said.

Does ArsClip count as a clipboard replacement, or just a manager? It's working well for me, anyway, completely portably, and I'd suggest it for the relevant category.

Zip-managers: IZArc I'd not recommend. It's okay for normal stuff, but 7Zip (and 7Zip Portable) will handle things that choke IZArc, in my experience.

No category seems to fit another favourite of mine: TrueCrypt. Particularly useful to me is the fact I can cart an encrypted drive around with me and open it under Linux as well as Windows -- although, naturally, the Linux machine needs local installation.

It might be a PortableApps component (I haven't double-checked) but DosBox Portable works very well too. Okay, so it's more useful for carrying old games around than doing USEFUL things...

PStart is a better and more configurable portable menu app, so I use and recommend that.

I found SumatraPDF Portable at PortableApps.com and use it in preference to FoxIT -- it's more stripped down but really fast -- to the extent that I will even use it in preference to Acrobat on my own PCs.

A recent discovery is a freeform database, useful (to me!) as a portable knowledgebase. Neomem, at www.NeoMem.org. Free and can be run portably.

The WinPenPack's good -- mentioned elsewhere -- and comes in handy occasionally, but there's an awful lot there that's not very useful, and one day I'm just going to extract the useful bits and delete everything else...

There's a useful hex editor at http://www.mh-nexus.de called HXD, runs completely portably, occasionally a lifesaver...

Finally, two portable apps that are (in my view!) worth paying for: RoboForm and Directory Opus (www.gpsoft.com.au) The former, you all know about anyway. The latter... I don't think you can buy a plain portable licence for it, but you can add a portable licence to the desktop one. Sorry, but it makes all other file managers look a bit second-rate...

I think that this list would be found by more users if each of the category entries was changed to include the word "portable" in the label. For example, "Best Anti-Virus" would be shown as "Best Portable Anti-Virus."

I've done many Google searches over the years using expressions like: "anti-virus" best portable. Although "portable" does show up on this page, and should cause the page to be picked up, it will occur much further down in the results list than it would if the terms were written together in the label.

Google Desktop is portable? I'd like to know how to install it on a USB flash drive. Google says that by default it only installs on C:\Program Files or another drive if there is not enough space on C:. So how do you get this onto your flash drive??

Even I'd be interested to know that...

Here are a few others for consideration. I've used each of these except for DateDiff

Yamipod - A standalone iPod interface tool that let's you sync with Windows folders, extract songs from iPods, organize and rename/retag files, create/edit playlists or just use it as a standalone music player. Drag it to your iPod and run it directly from there. Play your music anywhere without iTunes (I used this feature after they disabled streaming music sites at work). Always backup your music files before using a tool like this. And it's better if you don't interface your iPod with iTunes before or after switching to Yamipod or other similar tools. It's still ok to use iTunes, just don't connect your iPod while it's running (in other words you should only use one tool for managing your iPod's internal library otherwise you'll have conflicts)

URL: http://www.yamipod.com/main/modules/home/

PeaZip - Found this on PortableApps.com. It's a nice backup for those who are big fans of 7-Zip. When you run across the occasional RAR file you can use PeaZip. Of course PeaZip also supports 7-Zip and IZArc supports pretty much everything. So again, this one's good for 7-Zip fans who need occasional RAR support.

URL: http://peazip.sourceforge.net/index.html

Mess Rename - Another renamer tool. I particularly like how simple and clean the interface is on this one. When you just need quick and simple rename ability a tiny app like this can be helpful. Personally, I see no reason why this couldn't share space on your USB drive with something more robust like Lupas Rename.

URL: http://www.download.com/Mess-Rename/3000-2248_4-10648239.html?tag=dir&cd...

Clementime - It's a play on words. The app is simply a tiny (and readily available) stopwatch. Need to time something? Here you go. USB ready and completely free.

URL: http://www.kobayashi.com/clementime.html

DateDiff - I've got a similar app on my Palm Treo that every once in a while comes in extremely handy. Enter two dates and find out exactly how much time has passed or will pass between them. Seems like there's a tool for everything and here's the perfect example of that.

URL: http://www.kobayashi.com/datediff.html

HOW TO RUN VIRUS SCAN AUTOMATICALLY
WHEN YOU PLUG YOUR KEY IN AT INTERNET CAFES

Hello there,

For what it's worth, this is what I am doing at the moment. Won't prevent virus to jump onto the drive but at least Antivir will catch it right then.

Place these two files in the root of your USB. (This only works if the host computer has Autoplay enabled)

File 1: AUTORUN.INF
[autorun]
label=(YOUR NAME HERE)
open=scan.bat
ACTION = Launch portable workspace

File 2: scan.bat.
pause "Press Key for Antivir ACTIVE PROCESSES"
start \PortableApps\Avira\AntiVir\avscan.exe /GUIMODE=1 /CFG="process.avp"
pause "Press Key for Antivir SYSTEM FOLDER"
start \PortableApps\Avira\AntiVir\avscan.exe /GUIMODE=1 /CFG="sysdir.avp"
pause "Press Key for Antivir USB DRIVES"
start \PortableApps\Avira\AntiVir\avscan.exe /GUIMODE=1 /CFG="rmdiscs.avp"
start \PortableApps\Avira\AntiVir\avcenter.exe

If you don't want to scan, just press Ctrl+C at the "Press Key" prompt
Also recommend launching Neo Safe Keys and Ultra Shredder

Would anyone has a better idea on how to prevent viruses from jumping onto USB drives at Internet cafes?
So far the best idea I've heard is to buy a flash drive with a Write-Protect switch, but these are rare at the moment on the 4GB-32GB drives.

Love

Lizard

20.Best Digital Image Viewer - FastStone Image Viewer
27.Best BitTorrent Client - µTorrent
34.Best Website Ripper - WinHTTrack

Best BitTorrent client - BitTyrant

No one seems to have mentioned Lupo Pensuite.
A great compilation which has several of the programs mentioned here. Having everything together simplifies things a lot!

Free Apps:
Spell Checker -- APSC Spell
Synchronize System Clock with Atomic Clocks Worldwide -- Dimension 4
Display Outside IP Address -- FollowMeIP Lite
Turn Windows Scripting Host On or Off -- NoScript
Alter A File's Date and Time -- SetFileDate

I think Geek.menu is better than portableapps, but they are quite similar because geek.menu is just a fork with more features.

Irfanview is both an image editor and viewer.

It might be helpful for less experienced computer users to make a distinction between [portable] and [truly portable] software. There may already established terms I'm not aware of but I'm talking about the difference between "portable apps" that require installation to the USB drive versus those that are self-contained executables that you simply drag-n-drop to your USB drive (they run instantly as soon as you double click em). All are welcome of course but personally I'm more drawn to those in the second category.

Free Apps:
Multiple File Renamer -- ReNamer
Convert Formated To Pure Text -- PureText
Burner -- DeepBurner
Format USB Drives Without Problems -- HP USB Drive Format Tool
See Everything That Is Connected Via USB -- USBDeview
See Everything That Is Connected To The Internet -- Who's Connected
File Shedder, small and fast -- CyberShredder

For "File Archiver/Zip Utility" (#24), I use and recommend 7-zip portable.

System Cleanup http://www.xs4all.nl/~franckey/franckey/ it does not need installing and cleans up all your drives

ClamWin Portable Antivirus is quite good. It doesn't have access-on-demand yet but the developers say that this function will be up and running in the next release....

Don't know what category it should be in, but if you do any sort of website development, Firebug (firefox extension) is damn near indispensable

MayI recommend:

The Portable Freeware Collection: www [DOT] portablefreeware [DOT] com/

1223 items in 187 categories.  Yes, some of the categories only contain 1 or 2 programs, but it's a great little clearing house and an excellent place to start.  They have forums (which I've never visited) and an RSS feed that I check every morning.

--- Daleus, Curmudgeon-at-Large

 

Restoration is a file recovery program. Download the zip file, unzip it, and put the unzipped folder on your jump drive or external HD. Then, just run the exe program. No installation needed. There is no help file, but it can restore files from one drive to another drive. I just used it to restore & copy to another drive about 60gb of media files my daughter managed to "delete." She says that everything seems to have been recovered. By the way, if one restores a folder it appears to also restore everything that is in that folder.

Finally, you might wish to check out the site www.giveawayoftheday. In addition to giving away for free a normally $$ program, it has viewer comments, which is where I learned about Restoration.

Well, I finally found the "Ewido microscan.exe" after scouring the Internet for about an hour - it was at a forum but it was nowhere to be found at Ewido - now part of AVG.

I think that it is clear that the list needs to have (working) links - Don't you?

Craig Dunbar

Well how about sharing it with the rest of the world?

Free Apps:
Clipboard Manager -- ArsClip
Ripper -- CDex
Legal Music Getter -- Clickster
Country Code Finder -- Country Codes
Simple File Encryption Tool -- dsCrypt
Viewer -- XnView
File Manager -- FreeCommander
RSS Reader -- GreatNews
Anonymous Surfing -- OperaTor
File Recovery -- Recuva
On Screen Keyboard -- SafeKeys
Virtual Drive Encryption -- TrueCrypt
Convertor For Any Units -- Units Convertor
Owner of Domain Identifier -- WhoIsThisDomain
Dictionary/Thesaurus -- WordWeb

matt,
H.I.P.S. - Host Intrusion Prevention System
Don't forget to expand your acronyms at least once.

My Suggestion Best Portable Bible Reading / Search Software is Berean Bible at http://www.berbible.org/.
I have the program plus eight translations on a USB and it takes only 26 megs. Only does searches, really fast.... But hasn't got commentary or notes function.. Great little program and all free.

Steven Halvorsen
Victoria, Texas

Here is what I have on my modified
http://usb.smithtech.us/projects/autolauncher4u3.php
U3 1gb USB drive

ClamWin
http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/clamwin_portable

AutoMemScan- an auto scan using ClamWin
http://portableapps.com/node/11553

123 Spyware Free
http://www.smartpctools.com/antispyware_mobile/index1.html

Spybot Search+Destroy
Seems to be portable......
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=25478&highlight=portable

Here are a few cleaning tools-
Multi Virus Cleaner
http://www.viruskeeper.com/us/mvc.htm

RogueRemover
http://www.malwarebytes.org/rogueremover.php

DrWeb CureIt
http://freedrweb.com/

McAfee Stinger
http://vil.nai.com/VIL/STINGER/

Avast Cleaner
http://www.avast.com/eng/down_cleaner.html

KL Detector
http://dewasoft.com/privacy/kldetector.htm

MxOne-a new real-time scanner
http://mxone.net/en/index.php

and some other tools.......
KeePass
http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/keepass_portable

CrapCleaner
http://www.ccleaner.com/

Eraser
http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/eraser_portable

Toucan
http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/toucan

ResHack
http://www.winaddons.com/reshack-340/

WinMerge
http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/winmerge_portable

WinDirStat
http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/windirstat_portable

Pidgin
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/pidgin_portable

Thunderbird
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/thunderbird_portable

NewsProxy
http://improve-usenet.org/filters_ex2.html

Firefox
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

VLC
http://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/vlc_portable

IrfanView
http://www.irfanview.com/

GIMP
http://portableapps.com/apps/graphics_pictures/gimp_portable

Kompozer
http://portableapps.com/apps/development/nvu_portable

Java
http://portableapps.com/support/openoffice_portable#java

Frostwire
http://portableapps.com/node/11417

GnuCash
http://portableapps.com/apps/office/gnucash_portable

OpenOffice
http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable

Abiword
http://portableapps.com/apps/office/abiword_portable

Notepad++
http://.com/apps/development/notepadpp_portable

FreeCommander
http://www.freecommander.com/

7zip
http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/7-zip_portable

Audacity
http://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/audacity_portable

MPlayer
http://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/mplayer_portable

Foxit
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

Defraggler
http://www.defraggler.com/

Restoration
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html

and to put it all together: PortableApps Menu Mod r30
http://portableapps.xrx.ca/

I scanned MxOne with AntiVir and it reported a trojan and so did
Ikarus,Norman and Sophos according to jotti. I am not sure if it is a false-positive,but I would hold off installing MxOne.

Max Wachtel

In the category of file manager I use Xplorer2 which runs from my stick. Because I use the stick for transfers as well as portable apps it is an obvious choice. It has the option of a dual pane view which is very useful when moving, copying or syncing.

Best portable note taking program: the scrapbook extension for Firefox. I use it on my main computer (xp) and my old laptop (win98). I use the usb stick to carry info around
Best pfd-reader: foxit
Best text-editor: editpadlite
Best portable wordprocessor: abiword
Best portable browser: firefox portable

46.Best Rename Utility:

Bulk Rename Utility - http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php

You can download installers for Windows, but there is also a download that is a zip file that contains the necessary files to run from a portable device. Just unzip the files and create a shortcut to the executable.

The program looks intimidating when you first try to use it, but the majority of the settings are defaulted to what you normally need. If you have more complex needs, the program is powerful enough to handle almost anything.

Best free Antivirus

ClamWin Portable

OS (Windows or Linux) on a stick: www.moka5.com

Makes EVERYTHING portable. The downside, it requires admin rights on the host PC to run.

There is also a tutorial on getting Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 to run from a USB/flash drive.

http://portableapps.com/node/10308

-jaxun

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