Take your apps with you

closeHey, just so you know ... this post is now about 15 years and 9 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

I bought a Corsair 2gb Flash Padlock last August after hearing Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte talk about it on the Security Now! podcast (episode #106). I use it primarily for shuttling files back and forth between my home and work computers (in a TrueCrypt container), but have also configured it as a bootable device so I can run the Ultimate Boot CD from it (which is handy when I’m asked by friends or family to work on their broken computers).

Some other neat things I keep on it are the portable applications from PortableApps.com. You simply download the PortableApps Suite (or the individual applications you want) and then install them onto your USB flash drive. No information is written to your local PC’s hard disk … everything is encapsulated on the flash drive. You can now plug your flash drive into any PC and run your applications without worrying about having to install them locally, or leaving any personal information (say, browsing history) behind when you’re done.

I keep the usual portable suspects on my Corsair: Firefox for web browsing, Thunderbird for e-mail, Pidgin for instant messaging, PuTTY for SSH connections, etc. Those are all available for download and install from the PortableApps site. However, you can also add your own portable applications and have then run from the PortableApps custom start menu.

For example, I’ve added TrueCrypt, JungleDisk, Bucket Explorer, and mRemote to my personal portable utility arsenal.

Keep in mind that not every application is automagically portable: it needs to be specifically coded to not use any local PC resources (like .ini files, the registry, etc.). So you can’t just dump a program into the PortableApps directory on your flash drive and expect it to work. Do your homework (i.e., search Google) though, and you’ll find plenty of portable applications out there.

Start building your own utility belt today!

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