The Best Free Portable Applications

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

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??

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

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!

Must have programs for a security conscious tragic:

Sandboxie, and I have set it up in such a way that E-mails come sandboxed;

Key Scrambler, the latest 2.0 version which encrypts anything that is typed into the Google page;

icon on desktop for manual activation of "Local Area Connection", so that the internet is not on all the time;

Turn off your modem at night, and on in the morning to give yourself a new IP address;

DropMyRights Firefox;

Microsoft Security Analyzer 2.1 for an immediate view whether your updates are up to scratch;

Secunia inspector;

Snoopfree for keylogger notification;

Comodo with Defence activated;

Avast, having switched from AVG;

Manual activation of AVG Spyware;

Bootvis for faster loading;

PageDefrag for defragmenting boot fragments;

Diskkeeper Lite for defragmenting;

The built-in Microsoft Disc repairer (now and then) for a healthy disk;

CCcleaner;

jv16 the 1.3 version for a registry clean up;

"The Tweaking Companion" for maximising windows performance;

System Restore frequently updated to avoid formatting because some 100 programs would need to be reloaded;

Foxit Reader which is quicker and not bloated like Adobe;

Registrar Registry Manager because the Windows Removal system does not clean up left behind fragments;

Basically that's it. All are tried, and proven, and free, and most have been sourced initially through our good friend Gizmo. Support him for Gizmo has saved me hundred of dollars of the last few years.

Incidentally, even though I am 95%+ confident in having a well protected system, I would never, never, do anything such as banking over the internet, nor do I leave anything on the drive which says, password, name, etc., and espcially with E-mail.

My little contribution

FK

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: http://www.portablefreeware.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

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