Portable Applications
on 11.30.04, 08:33am in software • comments (10)
As I continue to optimize the usefulness of my 1GB USB keychain, several people pointed me to Portable Firefox and Portable Thunderbird. These are basically repackaged versions of the Firefox web browser and Thunderbird email client that use ‘launchers’ to directly run them from a USB keychain, CDRW, ZIP drive, external hard drive, MP3 players (that mount as removable storage), flash cards, etc. It also looks like there’s a removable drive IM client, Trillian Anywhere.
The more I think about it, the more I like the concept of applications being more ’self-contained’. Rather than spreading data files into c:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Product, putting configuration information to the registry and sending it’s DLL’s into the \Windows folder, it certainly would be nice (and allow greater flexibility in moving things around) if applications could allow more of an ‘xcopy’ re-deployment of an application to a personal USB drive.
This of course, has some minor downsides: How do you handle multiple users on the same machine, DLL explosion, required system components, security, etc.
I really think that this is an interesting area to explore - I would love to have a "Portable RSS Bandit" on my keychain. Of course the machine running it would need the .NET Framework installed, but that’s also on my keychain 
Dominic (November 30, 2004 @ 10:36 am)
:tounge in cheeck:
Have you tried *nix?
:/tounge in cheek:
I just put a home directory on my thumbdrive, no problem.
James Kendrick (November 30, 2004 @ 1:16 pm)
Steve, I know it’s the L (inux) word but you might consider this:
http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2004/10/carry_your_linu.html
Full version that will run on anything and keeps all your online activity confined to the USB keychain.
Steve Makofsky's WebLog (December 10, 2004 @ 7:01 am)
Virtual Obesity
Steve Makofsky's WebLog (December 20, 2004 @ 8:23 pm)
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Steve Makofsky's WebLog (December 20, 2004 @ 8:27 pm)
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S.S. Browser (February 6, 2005 @ 10:54 pm)
Portable applications
Steve Makofsky, over at the the.furrygoat.experience, talks about a desire for portable applications.
leftyfb (August 30, 2005 @ 8:24 am)
http://www.no-install.com
Pierre Chapgier (December 2, 2005 @ 10:47 am)
Is there a way to run Palm on a movable drive (impossible so far as one can only install Palm on the C drive) or at least have the program access the personal files when they are located on the movable drive (absolutely impossible to do presently).
Thanks for your answer.
Krash Coarse (December 6, 2005 @ 9:02 am)
http://www.portablefreeware.com
Another great collection, and you don’t have to sign up to browse it!
Jonathan Lampe (January 5, 2006 @ 12:26 pm)
http://www.standardnetworks.com/moveitfreely
Free FTP/S command-line client for Windows. (FTP/S = FTP over SSL). Traditional and portable installations available.