What is a portable program ?
A portable program is a piece of software that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any other computer. It can be your email program, your browser, system recovery tools or even an operating system. The coolest part about it, is that all of your data and settings are always stored on a thumbdrive so when you unplug the device, none of your personal data is left behind.
Portable Office Software
Abiword (6.3 mb) - word processor (compatible with Microsoft word)
OpenOffice (65 mb) - free alternative to Microsoft Office (fully compatible with Ms Office docs)
PDF Viewers: Sumatra (1.1 mb) , Foxit PDF Reader (1.8 mb)
Portable Email Programs
Mozilla ThunderBird (6 mb) - very good email client (built-in address book, import/export, tons of addons)
Quick Mailer [20kb] - tiny program for sending quick e-mail messages
Portable Text and Voice Messengers
All-in-One (Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, etc.): Gaim [6.9 mb], Miranda IM [1.2 mb], Trillian [Win]
Skype - exlpains how to make skype portable
Portable Media Tools (Audio / Video)
Audacity (2.4 mb) - simple audio editor and recorder
VLC (9.3 mb) - powerful media player that plays almost all popular audio and video formats
K-Lite Mega Codec Pack with Media Player - another powerful media player for playing all conceivable formats
GIMP (8.6 mb) - free alternative to Photoshop
IrfanView [1013kb] - fast graphic viewer with basic image editing features
XNView [Win, Mac, Linux] - image viewer and converter (supports more then 400 image formats)
Firefox (5.8 mb)
FTP Clients: Filezilla [2.3 mb], FireFTP [0.1mb]
TrayURL - bookmark manager
uTorrent - popular torrent downloader
Portable Security Software
Antivirus: ClamWin [5.9mb], Dr.Web CureIt [5.5 mb]
Keepass Password [1mb] - securely store and manage your passwords
Omziff [0.5mb] - lets you encrypt/decrypt a file, using secure encryption algorithms. Also includes a password generator, file shredder, file splitter and some more tools.
LockNote - simple text file that lets you store sensitive info with 256bit password encryption.
RoboFor2Go - secure password manager and form filler
Smart Sniff [57kb] - lets you inspect network traffic that passes via your network adapter.
Sudoku - popular puzzle game
Bricks2000 - popular tetris clone
Logix - something similar to minesweeper
Gem Drop - fast-paced puzzle game
GeneRally - 2D racing game
Nagaskaki - chess game
NarkoMania - cool minesweeper clone
NeverBall - part puzzle, part action game
7Zip [1.1 mb] - file archiver and compressor, supports 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, RAR and more
Registry Tweaker [1.52mb] - registry tweaking tool
Restoration [229kb] - handy program for recovering deleted (or formatted) files
YamiPod - powerful iPod manager (copy mp3/AAC files to and from your iPod, import/export playlists, search for songs, remove duplicates,..). More iPod tools
Drive Manager [1191 kb] - quick summary for each local and removable drive.
PStart - lets you organize and create menu-like list for quicker access to your portable programs.
SyncPAppX - script that syncs preferences between portable and local applications.
RQ Money - handy utlity to manage your credits and debts
SIW - a system analysis tool that tells you almost everything you need to know about a computer, i.e. hardware, configuration settings, etc.
WinAudit - one more analysis tool
Convert [155 kb] - fast metric unit conversion tool (distance, temperature, volume, time, speed, mass…)
UK Calender [321kb] - straightforward calendar with ToDo and reminders
CPU-Z - provides detailed info about your processor and other components
Country Codes [1358 kb] - a small database of country codes and additional information for all countries.
TreePad Lite [866kb] - personal database program, lets you store all your notes, emails, bookmarks, etc. into one well-structured file
StartupList [158 kb] - displays all items that are in any way related to your computer startup and are executed without any user interactions
eTextReader [279kb] - read plain text files provided by Project Gutenberg in a book-like manner.
Index Your Files [640kb] - provides an easy way to create index databases (of specified folders and drives) for quick file/term search
RockXP [768kb] - handy utility for retrieving Win XP’s product key
WhoisThisDomain [42kb] - view owner and registration info for any domain name
Nvu (7.3 mb) - easy-to-use webpage editor. Simpler alternative to Dreamweaver and Microsft Frontpage
Server2Go - apache webserver (no configurations needed)
InstantRails[60mb] - contains Ruby, Rails, Apache, and MySQL, all preconfigured and ready to run.
Putty [0.9 mb] - lightweight telnet and SSH client
Follow-Me IP - displays your external IP address
XAMPP [25/17 mb] - integrated server package of Apache, mySQL, PHP and Perl. Just Unzip and Run
HTTP File Server - simple and easy-to-use file server for personal file sharing.
CurrPorts [46kb]- lets you view a list of ports that are currently in use, along with applications that use them
Hamachi
FTP Servers: Quick’n Easy FTP Server [355kb],
All-In-One Packages
PortableApps Suite [89.5mb] - includes 7 programs for essential needs (office, email, IM client, etc.) + cool Startup manager and backup utility
Portable Operating Systems (’HowTo’ Articles)
Mac OS Classic 7
Portable Linux: Knoppix, Ubuntu
Win XP
USB ThumDrive Tips
How to create a bootable USB key
Never Forget your USB Stick
QuickLaunch your USB workspace
That’s mainly it… In case you’re looking for something that wasn’t mentioned above, there are a couple of resources you may want to check out.
These are Portablefreeware.com and Tinyapps.org
