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List of portable software

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This is a list of software programs that are not required to be "installed" onto a computer's permanent storage device to be executed, and can be stored on a removable storage such as a USB flash drive and used on multiple computers. Ideally it can be configured to read its configuration from the same location as the software. This should not be confused with software portability, which is the ability for software to be run or compiled with little modification on diverse computing platforms. Most software on this list can be run on multiple computers of the same hardware and operating system platform only.

The distinction "portable" is mostly inapplicable for Apple Macintosh software, as the standard packaging and installation method of the Macintosh platform makes most applications already portable although they don't keep their settings on the drive, making them not really that portable. Portable Macintosh apps are also included in the below list where available.

See also: List of open source software packages, list of Unix programs, list of GNU packages, list of KDE applications, list of GNOME applications, freeware, shareware, public domain, proprietary software.

Networking and internet

SMS messaging

Web browsing


Portable Search Engine

Email clients

Wikis

  • airWRX (site) - Extensible WYSIWYG wiki environment (in development)
  • MediaWiki (site)
  • PmWiki (site)
  • TiddlyWiki (site) - Personal web notebook that runs standalone in a browser

Telnet, SSH clients

  • portaPuTTY - A hacked version of PuTTY that stores all its information in files, not in the registry.
  • PuTTY
  • WinSCP - Freeware SFTP and SCP client for Windows.

Download managers

IRC

FTP clients

P2P file sharing

Instant messaging

Program management

Podcast managers

  • Podcatcher on a stick (site) - installs on the MP3 player/USB flash drive and downloads podcasts to its USB harddrive. Supports Windows, MacOS X, and Linux.
  • myPodder (site) - the next generation of "Podcatcher on a Stick" from the same developers. Ties in to web services that provides a universal one-click subscription from any web site or directory without installing anything on your computer.

Newsreaders

Media players and recorders

Document editing

Office suites

Word processors

Text editors

PDF Readers

  • Foxit PDF Reader (site)

Desktop Publishing

Web Editors

Calendar management

  • Essential PIM (site) A complete Personal Information Manager with calendar (different views), appointment manager, contactmanager, taskplanner, to-do-lists and notes that comes in different versions. One of them is a fully portable version that will run directly from USB stick.
  • Portable Sunbird (Portable Sunbird site)
  • Portable Sunbird Mac OS X (site)

Audio/Video Editors

Encryption and Security

Real-Time Disk/Volume Encryption

  • Cryptainer LE (site) - Free 128-bit encryption software that creates an encrypted container (vault) of up to 25MB per volume to store any type of data. Simple drag and drop operation. NOTE: Install program to hard drive first, then go to Tools menu, click on "Install Cryptainer Mobile" and install to mobile drive location; then you can access a volume you create on the mobile drive with Cryptainer Mobile. NOTE: This feature requires a driver, which only users with administrator privileges can launch.
  • Dekart Private Disk (site) - Commercial (not free) disk encryption software with AES 256-bit encryption
  • FreeOTFE (site) - Free open-source on-the-fly disk encryption software that offers a "portable mode". Supports many different cyphers and allows "hidden" volumes to be created, giving plausible deniability of their existence and increased security. Also features compatibility with Linux disk encryption (including Cryptoloop "losetup", dm-crypt and LUKS). NOTE: This feature requires a driver, which only users with administrator privileges can launch.
  • TrueCrypt (site) - Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows XP/2000/2003 and Linux (TrueCrypt also provides plausible deniability or deniable encryption). It can run in portable mode. While files stored on a TrueCrypt volume are being read, they are decrypted on-the-fly to RAM. NOTE: This feature requires a driver, which only users with administrator privileges can launch.

File Encryption

  • CryptoStick Software (site) - Commercial (not free) encryption software
  • Remora USB Disk Guard (site) - Free file/folder encryption in your USB disk. 128-bit encryption, and very easy interface. Doesn't have the features of TrueCrypt, but will fill many users' needs, and doesn't need admin rights as TrueCrypt does.
  • Yadadisk (site) - Free open source simple, fully portable file encryption for Windows XP (this is not a real-time disk encryption program, like TrueCrypt). Files are stored unencrypted on a disk whenever you need to access them.

System Audit Applications

  • Belarc Advisor (site) - Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server.
  • WinAudit (site)- PC audit and inventory of software, licenses, security configuration, hardware, network settings...Text/html/csv/pdf/e-mail/database outputs available (can easily be 110+ pages of info!). Generally more detail than Belarc Advisor, but Belarc also good for more streamlined information.

Password Management

  • Acerose Password Vault - free (site)
  • Any Password Pro - commercial (site)
  • Dekart - commercial (site)
  • KeePass - free
  • Pass2Go (Portable Roboform) by Siber Systems Inc. - commercial (site)
  • Password Safe - free (site)
  • PINs - free (site)
  • Yadabyte Passwords - - free (site)

Antivirus Software

Miscellaneous

  • IE Privacy Keeper TakeAlong version (site) -

Mobile version of their software at http://www.browsertools.net/IE-Privacy-Keeper ...note the differences in the mobile version at the "TakeAlong" site. Flexible program clears IE and Firefox browsing history, URL history, typed URLs, temp Internet files, cookies, recent documents, auto-complete history, windows temp files, recycle bin, and more. You can opt to keep specified cookies. Make sure to download correct version (TakeAlong).

  • LockNote (site) - Free open source text editor that encrypts your file using AES 256bit encryption.

Graphics

Media

CD/DVD Burning

Games

  • D-Day: Normandy
  • Liero
  • Nexuiz
  • OpenArena
  • Portable GW - Play Guild Wars on any computer, without installation. Note that you must own a copy of the game for access to the servers, and you need to temporarily install the full game on your personal computer to be able to copy the game folder onto the portable media. After copying the game folder, it can be uninstalled from your computer. (site)
  • Starsiege: Tribes can easily be turned into a portable application by the user. The user can easily download the full game from Vivendi Universal's web-site. [3] The game must then be installed and patched. The whole directory can then be moved or copied for use as a portable app without having to install the game on individual computers the game is played on. Brian "Ayavaron" Jeffrey Ross II made a zip containing the game in this form, it can be downloaded from here.
  • Tremulous
  • Quake
  • Many emulation programs such as ZSNES are portable.

Database Management

  • MyKeyDb from Jans Freeware (site)
  • Visual Foxpro from Microsoft - Commercial (site) - Just need vfp9.Exe and VFP9ENU.dll to run (other versions/languages may vary). No install necessary.

Launchers

  • XLaunchers from winPenPack - Universal Launcher(site)

Operating Systems

Main article: List of LiveCDs

Miscellaneous

  • Portable Check Off (site) To-do list manager for Mac OS X
  • Instant Rails (site), a one-stop Rails runtime solution containing Ruby,
  • HFS - HTTP File Server (site), a file sharing software using highly compatible web technology. easy to use.
  • Hypercard a Hypertext-based programmable database, developed by Apple Computer in 1987 with several improvements until 1992, it is no longer maintained although it can still be bought. It is considered a forerunner of the web browsers.

Rails, Apache, and MySQL, all preconfigured and ready to run (currently only on Microsoft Windows).

  • Sveglia (site), a simple alarm clock. With Sveglia it is possible to activate an alarm, run a program, shutdown or restart the PC at certain time.
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