Portable Applications - All you need is a USB...

Following is a rephrased version of a blog I recently posted here.

First of all, let's start with the heart of a computer - Operating system. Hope you all have heard about Damn Small Linux . It's a Linux LiveCD distribution. Also, it sizes only ~50Mb. Another good distribution was Flonix which seems offline these days. Puppy Linux is only ~60Mb and is claimed to be a very good alternative as well. These distros come bundled with tons of portable applications such as Firefox and OpenOffice. There are also projects to create Windows on USB and Mac on Stick , but both include price of operating system thus making discussion worthless here.

Next thing you would need on a computer system is an office suite. On a local machine where you have huge space, you actually install an application like that. If you have huge pockets, you can go for a paid, complete suite such as Microsoft Office. Otherwise, OpenOffice or Star Office would do just fine. The good news is - OpenOffice is available in portable version. You can thank John Haller, and get his Portable OpenOffice . It's a terrific application. A must have for that USB stick..

I can't think of myself using any browser other than Firefox now. I get frustrated when I have to use some other's computer and FF isn't installed on it. There is a cure to that. And it comes in the form of Portable Firefox , again from the same developer, John Haller. So, now you can carry around your extensions, bookmarks, saved forms - just about everything you have on your computer!!

I think this much information is good enough to get you started. Get your USB stick loaded. All you need is 256Mb. I hope to add some more utilities in next edition of my blog, whenever I get a chance. I just need to dig out through my bookmarks. Expect details on portable anti-virus, firewall, media players, chat clients, photo editors, CD burners, compression apps....oomph..it's a long list..I should be updating the thread again soon.

So...comments? words of appreciation? or criticism? do you see any quality of a future geek magazine writer?! just kidding...a friend commented that.

Edit: I must add some links I have for nice portable applications.

http://www.combobulate.com/node/13
http://tinyapps.org/weblog//
http://portableapps.com/
http://www.techtastic.ca/articles/portable.html

Great article/thread Tejas. A lot of people will find it helpful.

I don't have any critism, it's well written ("future geek magazine writer"). Great job.

As for these, well all I need is the USB stick itself, then for sure I'll make it into a bottable OS with all what I need.

Maybe some additions like Prime95, Memtest86, SuperPI, F@H client, IrfanView (as a portable graphics application), Portable GIMP, VLC Media player or Mplayer (as portable audio/media/dvd players), Portable7zip (archive software, just that it's in french, but everybody can understand "Extrairo" and such), DeepBurner Portable (it's freeware dvd/cd really powerful application), Foxit PDF Reader (small, fast, clean, freeware), Miranda (excellent, multimessenger, supports AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber, MSN, IRc... etc)- and a lot more.

So generally speaking an 256MB/512MB stick is enough to make a performant, and small OS. Let's see others' opinions and comments about this topic.

EDIT: few more links (some of them are already in Tejas' post )
Portable Apps
Portable Freeware Collection
Portable apps for USB flash drives
Wikipedia's list of portable apps

Thanks Hyena.

As I said in the previous post, I am going to throw in few more apps in there. For example, SCDWriter is a very tiny .exe that you can use as a CDburner. {Thanks Nilpo for posting about this app in Useful Freeware thread}. You can also refer to my other threads in OS section about Bootable USB.

Edit: This thread is what I am talking about.

Yeah, I know... just still - I added there a list of apps, what I'd personally put on my USB (but then I'd use SCDWriter, because Deep Burner is around 6-7MB, and looks more complex, all we need is to be quick, tiny, and to perform excellent).

Snapfiles has a list of some USB tools as well.

You forgot portable Opera and Haller's Portable Thunderbird.

In fact, I have all those on mind already. IIRC, I posted about Portable Opera in the Useful Freeware thread. The fact that the thread is almost an unedited version of my blog is the main reason first post didn't contain all of them. Thanks for the mention though...

they briefly covered this in pc magazine, but i have to say you did a much better job! thanks, now i have to get a 4 gb usb drive.

Thanks Jaken..

As a second part of the original post, I am trying to summarize few more applications that can help you in your day-to-day chores. And I cannot emphasize more on having a portable email client that suits all your needs!

John Haller loves to build portable applications. His next gift to us is Portable Thunderbird. Mozilla's original ThurnderBird is a wonderful open-source cum freeware application, a great alternative to Microsoft's Outlook. The portable version works like a charm.

Feel like having a calender to keep yourself scheduled?! No worries fellas! Portable Sunbird is right here. I thought the Sunbird project was long dead. But it was a pleasant surprise to see this application.

How can you imagine a computer without virus...errr...anti-virus application?! Clamwin Portable is there to rescue. Sweet part is that although it's portable installation, it updates virus definitions everytime you use it.

I would be worried about spywares-adwares more than virus today. I have tried and succesfully used Spybot from a USB stick. It is a simple trick, where I installed both on a USB stick instead of a local program file folder on the hard drive. Next time I had to use it, all I had to do was click the .exe on the stick. There are few more such applications available like X-RayPC but I have never used it before.

Thanks Nilpo for finding me the Firewall I wanted to talk about. FloppyFW is a portable firewall application you might want to consider.

For an alternative web browser, you can always try Portable Opera {I am sure itsacon's gonna love this. } Many many people consider Opera far better browser in the universe.

Putty is a freeware SSH client. It is a tiny .exe file that you can run to connect to a remote server. It is really cool toy.

Along with GAIM, you can use Portable Google Talk as a chat client. I found this 20 MB CrazyPack, which included many cool small apps that you can use on USB. Most of them are listed here already.

I think you can also use uTorrent as a portable application. But I am not too sure about it.

Apart from all these apps, madhyena pointed out tons of good other apps. Combined all these can work as a computer on its own. I guess there is nothing you cannot do with a USB now.

If you intend to rely this much on USB sticks, you must read PCStat's USB Data Recovery Guide. Things can go wrong anytime as USBs are flash drives. You should be prepared for a rainy day anytime.

Here is a nice article I found about setting up all these portable apps. Hope it is helpful.

More Links:
http://www.portablefreeware.com/all.php
Check out this list as well: http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/20213

Nice job as always Tejas.

Great work. Gratz. Can't rep atm, I'm cycling.

Thanks you folks!

Alrightie..I am reserving this post too for future edits. For instance, Pstart is a very nice application for starting apps on your USB.

hehe yeah long list goodstuff tejas... also, how about a portable web server? i got this little baby called purplenova to run off my 2GB sandisk

Thanks audioadi. I have been busy as hell lately, so didn't really get a chance to update the list here. The application you mention looks really good, I might give it a try myself.

Thread res, for the better.
bob_man_uk dared me to google WMlite, so i did.
Portable messenger 8.0
and here is what i was talking about
Portable MSN mesenger 7.5

these arent exactly the best portable msn messengers, but they're close. they wont save setting simply because of the registry entries... WLM was called windows live mess (mess not messenger) by the creator of "portable version 7.5"

i havent quite tested bob_man_uk's suggestion, so i cant give feedback as of yet