 Your Apps - on a USB Flash
Last week the folks over at PortableApps.com launched their new and updated release of their PortableApps.com Suite™. Featuring a versatile collection of portable apps that include most applications that you're likely to use on your home OS. It's easy to use and works from any USB flash drive. Just download the software to your favorite USB flash drive and launch it from there. Use your favorite applications from any computer, and without leaving any personal information behind. All you need to carry is a USB flash drive.
From a Firefox web browser, a password manager with strong AES-256 encryption to Pidgin, an instant messaging client that connects to AIM, Google Talk, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, QQ and more, the new PortableApps Suite includes everything you need to get your work done. ClamWin Portable AntiVirus Scanner let's you scan files and folders on the go, and the light Sumatra PDF Portable that starts up from your USB flash drive real fast and let's you open and view your PDF files on the road while you listen to music using the free and slim audio player that's included...
Those with enough space on their USB flash drive will probably want to download the Suite Standard, the Suite Version that also includes a full version of OpenOffice.org's Portable Office. This full version will require around 355MB once installed. A quality USB flash drive with capacity of 512MB or more to run the applications from is recommended. If you want to store files, bookmarks, emails or even images or videos we recommend a fast 2GB USB drive with high-speed NAND memory from Samsung.
All the software is Open Source and most applications are GPL licensed, while the Mozilla apps are licensed under the MPL. This gives PortableApps an unique advantage and makes it a good choice for both software publishers, editors, hardware vendors and suppliers of USB flash drives and SD cards.
Providing an open platform for portable applications that can run from all USB flash drives, MP3 players and iPods, SD Cards and so on. PortableApps has benefited from the work and involvement of a fast growing community of both developers and users.
Compared to closed-source and proprietary solutions such as U3, who is providing a similar software solution for USB flash drives, it seems clear that the transparent and fast development cycles are an advantage of successful open source applications and ultimately leads to better software.
The fact that both software developers and hardware vendors can access the source code openly and for free makes it a much more attractive development platform than e.g U3, where licensing fees tend to be expensive and the licensing policy not very flexible.
For users who are concerned about security - and who isn't these days - we recommend to use PortableApps from within a virtual encrypted disk. This way you can make sure that your data is being kept securely also in case you should loose the USB flash drive. We recommend the use TrueCrypt to encrypt your USB flash drives, and make sure your sensitive data is protected by military-grade encryption algorithms before you leave your workstation with that USB flash drive in your pockets...
The more paranoid among us will also appreciate TrueCrypt's support for plausible deniability.
Learn more about the versions of PortableApps that are available for download here
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