Get to know portable apps

Every now and then you are in the situation that you’re not on your own computer. In this cases, portable apps on an USB drive come in very handy.

What is a portable app?

A portable app is a computer program which you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any other computer. Portable devices are, for example, USB flash drives, portable external hard drives, iPods/MP3 players and SD flash cards. When a portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. When you unplug the device, none of your personal data is left behind.
A portable app can be a single portable program up to a fully functional operating system on a Live CD or bootable drive.

What do I get?

Portable apps are awesome if you have to work on other peoples PCs a lot. The big advantage is that you can carry all your usual stuff with you. Instead of using Internet Explorer 6 you can fire up Firefox Portable. You can check your emails and calendar with Mozilla Thunderbird or chat with buddies on your regular instant messenger. You can also get a lot of work done with OpenOffice Portable, graphic programs and server programs. There are a lot of open source programs available as portable apps.

Where to get portable apps?

Most portable apps are for Windows users, an excellent site is PortableApps.com. It features regular updates and all major programs, including the PortableApps.com Suite.

Check out the following list of portable app sources:

The Portable Freeware Collection

App-Stick Free Portable Applications

Downloadpedia: Portable Freeware Software

Wikipedia: List of portable software

100 Portable Apps for your USB Stick (for Mac and Win)

Pendriveapps.com

35 Portable Applications that Every Tech Needs

Feel free to write a comment with additional sources.

Security issues

While it’s true that portable applications on USB drives are incredibly useful, security is a major downside, if you are not careful with the data you store. As long you don’t save sensitive, personal data, you are fine. But if your USB drive gets lost or stolen, you might have a problem. A good solution to secure a flash drive is encrypting it with TrueCrypt, which is free and also available as a portable application. Using encryption and a strong master password should keep your drive safe.