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Portable applications are, type of applications that doesn’t need to be installed on your system, and it doesn’t leave anything on the system either after it closes. It is primarily aimed to be used on flash drives, portable harddrives, or anything with “drive” mode such as iPods or PDAs. It’s meant for portability and practicality, hence the name, but in the recent times, I’ve also used them as primary applications on my XP system.

Installing software, even the ones that I need, will put more files, more registry entries, and maybe new startup entries as well. In time, this will slow down the PC. So, in order to prevent that, I decided to make portable almost all my needed applications. Almost, because there are some that cannot be made portable (Virtualization Suite), or some that must be installed in order to work properly (Antiviruses). Drivers are excluded, can’t do much without them installed, eh?

By using portable apps, I can avoid installing (thus keeping my system clean), and the best part is, I can bring my applications and use them anywhere! It retains my settings and preferences so I can continue working in environment I am familiar with, no matter where. Plus, it’s cool. Believe me.

Some links to visit:

• http://portableapps.com/ (my main source of.. portable applications a very nice must visit site)
• http://www.portablefreeware.com/ (another source, I don’t visit here often, but it’s still a good site for comparing/researching for portable applications)
• http://www.vmware.com/products/thinapp/ (a virtualization program, it can “pack” your application into single executable file. You can make your own portable applications easily with this. NOT freeware, and VERY expensive.)

Hm, I think that’s all for now.