Portableappz.com (i think it does have viruses)

Disabling a Portable App’s Splash Screen

Many apps packaged in PortableApps.com Format include splash screens so the user sees quick feedback an app is starting on slower flash media and doesn’t accidentally try to start it again. The splash screens also serve to let users know that they’re using a repackaged version of an app and to visit us first for portable support issues. If you’d prefer not to see the splash screen, disabling it is a snap.

PortableApps.com Platform — Click Options and select the Advanced tab. There, you’ll see a checkbox to disable splash screens across all our apps. Note that this will only affect splash screens shown by the PortableApps.com Launcher and not splash screens displayed by the apps themselves (GIMP, LibreOffice, etc).

Standalone — Within the AppNamePortable\Other\Source directory (where AppName is the name of the app you’re working with), you’ll find an AppNamePortable.ini file that includes some example options. Copy this file to the AppNamePortable directory and rename it, if necessary, to the name of the app (FirefoxPortable.ini or similar). Open the file within your preferred text editor, something like Notepad++ Portable. Within, you’ll find an entry DisableSplashScreen=false which just needs to be set to true. Save the file and the app will launch without the splash screen. This setting will be remembered as you upgrade the app, too.

Some apps include their own splash screen within the apps themselves (GIMP, LibreOffice, Scribus, etc). For these splash screens, there is sometimes an option within the Options of the app to disable it, a specific text file to modify, or a command line option to pass (which the PA.c Launcher can usually pass via the AdditionalParameters= setting in the INI file mentioned in the «Standalone» section above. You’ll need to check the app’s documentation from the publisher to be sure.

Image Viewers

IrfanView

IrfanView is superior to the default Windows image editor in every way you can imagine. It’s amazing for batch-editing images and for making very rapid alterations to screenshots and photos. It’s also extremely extensible with thousands of plugin filters available. Just a word of advice: learn to use IrfanView’s hotkeys (or keyboard shortcuts).

So why is it under «Image Viewer» and not «Image Editor»? Because it can do both. IrfanView is excellent also as a quick light app for viewing images (either individually or as a slideshow).

Download: IrfanView for Windows (Free)

XnView

A nice simple app which scans your hard drive and presents the images to you for easy viewing. As well as looking at the pictures, you can also view its properties, including the EXIF data.

You can import 400 different file formats and export your photos in one of 50 file formats. Plus slideshows, printing support, and side-by-side comparison.

Download: XnView for Windows (Free)

Installing a Portable App

The easiest way to install an app is to use the PortableApps.com Platform’s built-in app store as described above in Downloading a Portable App, as downloading and installing are done automatically in one operation. You can also install apps without the app store and even without our platform…

PortableApps.com Platform Manual Installation — To install a portable app to the PortableApps.com Platform, just click Apps and then Install a New App. In the window that comes up, click the Install button. Then, browse to the AppNamePortable_x.x.paf.exe file you downloaded and select it. Now, follow the on-screen prompts if there are any. The Platform takes care of letting the installer know where to install to.

Standalone Installation — To install a portable app by itself, or manually, just browse to the location of the AppNamePortable_x.x.paf.exe file you downloaded. Double-click the file to start the installation. Follow the on-screen prompts and select the location you’d like to install to. If the installer detects an existing PortableApps directory on one of your attached drives or within your USERPROFILE folder, it will automatically select that. Otherwise, the current directory will be selected by default. Within the directory you select, an AppNamePortable directory will be created containing the portable app. Note that installing to the C:\Program Files or equivalent is not supported.

These Portable Apps Are My Favorites

My favorite portable apps are qBittorrent, LibreOffice, and Tor Project. If you install qBittorrent, make sure to download responsibly and legally—and always use a VPN on the web!

ProtonMail Logs IP Addresses: 4 Privacy Lessons You Can Learn

After ProtonMail handed over IP information to authorities, here’s what we can all learn about so-called privacy-focused services.

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About The Author

Kannon Yamada
(338 Articles Published)

Kannon is a Tech Journalist (BA) with a background in international affairs (MA) with an emphasis on economic development and international trade. His passions are in China-sourced gadgets, information technologies (like RSS), and productivity tips and tricks.

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From Kannon Yamada

Security (View by Category)

• ClamWin Portable — Antivirus on the go
• Emsisoft Emergency Kit Portable (Freeware) — virus and malware scanner and remover
• Eraser Portable — securely delete files and data
• EraserDrop Portable — easily secure-erase files and data
• GPG Plugin Portable — GnuPG encrypt and sign utility
• HijackThis Portable — Browser hijack scanner
• Kaspersky TDSSKiller Portable (Freeware) — Rootkit remover
• KeePass Classic Password Safe Portable — Secure, easy-to-use password manager
• KeePass Professional Password Safe Portable — Secure, easy-to-use password manager
• KeePassXC Portable — Full-featured password manager
• McAfee Stinger Portable (Freeware) — Common antivirus and ‘fake alert’ remover
• mssPortable (Freeware) — Microsoft Safety Scanner launcher
• Password Gorilla Portable — Secure password manager
• Password Safe Portable — Secure password manager
• PeerBlock — firewall based on IP blacklists and whitelist
• PWGen Portable — Secure password generator
• Spybot — Search & Destroy Portable (Freeware) — Spyware detection and removal
• VeraCrypt Portable — free disk encryption

Graphics & Pictures (View by Category)

• AndreaMosaic Portable (Freeware) — mosaic image creator
• AniFX Portable (Freeware) — full-featured cursor editor
• Blender Portable — 3D modelling, animation, rendering, post-production, playback
• Caesium Portable — image converter and optimizer
• Cornice Portable — image viewer with slideshow
• Dia Portable — full-featured diagramming tool
• DiffImg Portable — image comparison tool
• FastStone Capture Portable (Freeware) — screen capture and editor
• FastStone Image Viewer Portable (Freeware) — view, organize and convert images
• Fotografix Portable (Freeware) — lightweight image editor
• FotoSketcher Portable (Freeware) — make art from digital images
• FreeCAD Portable — 3D computer-aided design (CAD) tool
• Fyre Portable — 2D computational artwork
• GIMP Portable — Photo and Image Editor
• Greenfish Icon Editor Pro Portable — icon, cursor, and library editor
• Hot Spot Studio Portable (Freeware) — mix light to create art
• IcoFX Portable (Freeware) — full-featured icon editor
• IDPhotoStudio Portable (Freeware) — ID photo duplicator and printer
• Inkscape Portable — vector graphics editor
• IrfanView Portable (Freeware) — lightweight graphic viewer
• JPEGView Portable — image viewer and processor
• K-3D Portable — 3D modeling and animation
• Krita Portable — Sketching and painting
• LazPaint Portable — Photo and Image Editor
• LibreCAD Portable — 2D computer-aided design (CAD) tool
• MyPaint Portable — Digital painting and illustration
• Pencil2D Portable — 2D hand-drawn animation tool
• Pencil Project Portable — prototyping and diagramming tool
• PhotoFilmStrip Portable — photo slide show creator
• PhotoFiltre Portable (Freeware) — image editing and effects
• PicPick Portable (Freeware) — screen capture, editor, color picker, and more
• PngOptimizer Portable — image converter and optimizer
• RawTherapee Portable — advanced raw image processor
• Smart Deblur Portable — sharpen out of focus and blurry images
• XnView Portable (Freeware) — view, organize and convert photos

Gaming

Brutal Chess

I don’t know why I play chess, I really don’t. I always get slaughtered by the program, within the first 5-10 minutes of play. This is me after a few minutes, and already my Queen is under threat (I’m the white team).

The only brutal part of it is the brutal blood-letting going on when I get it into my head that I am a chess grandmaster.

Download: Brutal Chess for Windows (Free)

Patience

Patience is basically the Windows 95 version of Solitaire on steroids. It has music, animation, and a load of other features that make it the premiere standalone version of Solitaire on the internet.

You need to use Universal Extractor to extract the files, and then go from there. It’s all explained on the download page. Now go forth and waste several days mindlessly playing this game.

Download: Patience for Windows (Free)

Sudoku

I am not at all good at playing Sudoku. Yet, despite sucking at it, I recognize that it’s a truly great game. Even if you, like me, couldn’t play Sudoku on par with a 4-year-old toddler, it’s worth checking it out.

Download: Sudoku Portable for Windows (Free)

Using and Updating Multiple Copies of the Same App

PortableApps.com Platform 13.0 introduced the ability to use and update multiple copies of the same app. Once you’ve installed the app you’d like more than one copy of, browse to your PortableApps directory and make a duplicate of the AppNamePortable folder you’d like another copy of. Copying and pasting it in Explorer will work fine. Rename the second copy to AppNamePortable_Copy_2 (replacing AppName with the name of the app). You can have up to 10 copies of the same app with the 10th being AppNamerPortable_Copy_10. Now, when you check for updates within the PortableApps.com Platform, the update will applied to all copies of the same app. Be sure to preserve your original AppNamePortable copy as that will be the one the updater uses to determine when all of them need an update. Note that a couple of apps maintained by the publisher using a much older version of the PortableApps.com Installer may not support multiple copies of an app (example: Task Coach Portable).

Media Players

Foobar2000

A great, frequently updated, lightweight media player, with different skins, playlists, and the ability to play and rip audio CDs. Foobar2000 supports multiple media formats, advanced tagging capabilities, and customizable keyboard shortcuts.

While the executable file for Foobar2000 appears to require installation, it actually unzips if you choose the «portable installation» option after clicking on the executable. You can run the unzipped files without installing them, but it requires a Windows computer.

Download: Foobar2000 Portable for Windows (Free)

AIMP

AIMP is a bright looking thing, which supports multi-format files, multiple playlists, audio converting, naming and sorting tags, easy music organization, and it even works as an alarm clock, waking you up to your favorite tunes.

Download: AIMP Portable for Windows (Free)

VLC Player

VLC Player needs no introduction. VLC Player handles virtually any file format you care to throw at it. It plays DVDs, streaming video, and music. Most people can just install VLC Player for all their media-playing needs and forget the rest.

Download: VLC Player Portable for Windows (Free)

PotPlayer

PotPlayer is a feature-rich media player that plays hundreds of different video and audio formats without any dependency on installed codecs, as well as streaming media and DVD video. Other features include configurable subtitles, audio and subtitles delay adjustment, video equalizer, playlist support, etc.

Download: PotPlayer Portable for Windows 32-bit | Windows 64-bit (Free)

SMPlayer Portable

MPlayer is no longer being developed and is not recommended anymore. SMPlayer, however, is in active development.

This media player is notable for its ability to display two sets of subtitles on the screen at the same time, side-by-side. This is invaluable for language learners who can see their native language on the left, and the language they are learning on the right.

Please note however that the website tends to go up and down. However this in no way impacts the quality of the media player, which is excellent.

Download: SPlayer Portable for Windows (Free)

Media Player Classic

Media Player Classic (MPC) emulates the original Windows Media Player. For those not familiar with the app, it’s similar to VLC Player in that it can play almost any video file—and it’s open source. But above all else, MPC costs nothing while delivering one of the best viewing experiences around.

Download: Media Player Classic Portable for Windows (Free)

Установка PortableApps.com Platform

Запустите файл portableapps com platform setup на компьютере. После запуска файла portableapps paf выберите русский язык, а затем нажмите на кнопку «Далее». Примите условия лицензионного соглашения.

В окне «Тип установки» необходимо выбрать тип установки приложения:

• Новая установка — платформа PortableApps.com установится на USB-носителе, локальном ПК или облаке.
• Обновление установленного ПО — обновление ранее установленного PortableApps.com.
• Выберите другое расположение — выбор директории для установки PortableApps.com.

Программу-оболочку можно расположить в любом месте на компьютере, облаке, на съемном диске.

В окне «Способ установки» выберите наиболее предпочтительный вариант установки платформы.

Выберите место установки, если необходимо создайте папку для размещения платформы, подтвердите, а затем нажмите на кнопку «Установить».

После завершения копирования файлов, запустится окно с информацией. Затем откроется окно для загрузки новых приложений, а в области уведомлений появится меню оболочки, напоминающее меню «Пуск» в операционной системе Windows 7.

Если PortableApps.com Platform была установлена на компьютер, в дальнейшем можно переместить папку в любое другое место, например, на флешку.

Mozilla Firefox ESR, Portable Edition 91.1.0 (web browser) Released

PortableApps.com is proud to announce the release of Mozilla Firefox ESR, Portable Edition 91.1.0. It’s the Extended Support Release of the popular Mozilla Firefox web browser bundled with a PortableApps.com Launcher as a portable app It is intended for groups who deploy and maintain the desktop environment in large organizations such as universities and other schools, county or city governments and businesses, as well as the web developers that support them. Individual users should use standard Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition for everyday use. It’s a great way to test your sites and extensions in multiple versions of Firefox. It’s packaged in PortableApps.com Format so it can easily integrate with the PortableApps.com Platform. And it’s open source and completely free.

Mozilla, Firefox and the Firefox logo are registered trademarks of the Mozilla Foundation and are used under license.

or in the PortableApps.com Platform.

XnView v2.50.1 Updated

Ennovy on 7 Sep 2021 Change history

• 21MB (uncompressed)
• Released on 7 Sep 2021
• Suggested by
  Andrew Lee

XnView is a feature-rich, customizable media viewer that supports more than 400 formats. Includes batch image converter/renamer as well as basic transformations (rotate, filters, effects, colors, multi-page etc.). Various viewing settings include tabbed interface, fullscreen, slideshow, web page, contact sheet, image compare and filmstrip layout. Includes scanner support, screen capture, Photoshop’s 8bf plugins, image search, histogram, metadata viewer, automatic crop (deletes background), watermark, flash export and more. It can also store thumbnails to a temp folder rather than each image folder accessed, which is handy for portable use.
Alternatively, XnView Portable is pre-configured and automatically supports PDF interpreter/rendering engine Ghostscript Portable.

Web Tools

The Tor Project combines several features into a single package: A Virtual Proxy Network (VPN), a secure browser, and a few other security features. While Tor doesn’t fully protect against illegal surveillance, it does help prevent unwanted eavesdroppers from prying into your personal business. It’s great for everything from researching gift ideas for your loved ones to looking into political candidates.

While the downloaded package will install itself if you run it, Tor Browser can simply be unzipped and run—which means you don’t need to install it.

Download: Tor Browser for (Free)

WinSCP

FileZilla really annoys me. Fortunately, there’s a strong alternative called WinSCP.

You simply add your FTP details and it will connect almost instantaneously. You can then start dragging files from your computer and from your domain.

There is an installed version on the WinSCP site, but the portable version is virtually identical and just as fast. So it makes sense to just pop the portable version on your USB stick for when you need to update your site.

Download: WinSCP for Windows (Free)

Google Chrome

Opinion is divided over which is the best browser, but it practically seems to come down to two possibilities: Firefox and Chrome. In my opinion, Chrome is the winner, due to its superior syncing abilities, its speedy connection to the net, and the availability of extremely useful add-ons.

Download: Google Chrome for Windows (Free)

qBittorrent

qBittorrent is both open source and in active development. Not only is it free, but it’s also fairly secure. Particularly in comparison to the BitTorrent client, which has its share of vulnerabilities. I recommend QBittorrent over the other BitTorrent clients (particularly over uTorrent).

There’s also DelugePortable, which is the portable version of the (also) open source BitTorrent client Deluge.

Download: qBittorrent Portable for Windows (Free)

Image Editors

GIMP

Who doesn’t know GIMP? The «poor person’s Photoshop», because GIMP emulates a lot of Photoshop features, except for the fact that you are not paying through the nose for GIMP. Plus, like Photoshop, GIMP has a lot of features with a steep learning curve. I have been using GIMP for years, and I know I have only scratched the surface of it.

Download: GIMP for Windows (Free)

JPEG View

As the name of the app indicates, JPEG View can open, and view, JPEG images. It also views BMP, PNG, GIF and TIFF images (and others). You can also do some basic editing on those images such as adjusting the contrast, lighting, sharpness, and a few others.

It’s more or less a dead-simple image view application. While some might prefer the complexity of IrfanView, others might prefer the simplicity of JPEG View.

Download: JPEG View for Windows (Free)

Office (View by Category)

• A Note Portable — lightweight sticky notes
• AbiWord Portable — a lightweight word processor compatible with Microsoft Word files
• Apache OpenOffice Portable — word processor, spreadsheet, presentations with Microsoft compatibility
• BabelPad Portable (Freeware) — Unicode word processor and text editor
• calibre Portable — ebook manager and viewer
• Cherrytree Portable — hierarchical note-taker and organizer
• CintaNotes Portable (Freeware) — lightweight note-taker
• CuteMarkEd Portable — simple markdown editor
• Dia Portable — full-featured diagramming tool
• Dogecoin Core Portable — cryptocurrency preferred by shibes
• Evince Portable — document viewer (pdf, ps, djvu, tiff, dvi)
• Finance Explorer Portable (Freeware) — personal financial management
• FocusWriter Portable — distraction-free word processor
• Foxit Reader Portable (Freeware) — small and fast PDF reader
• GnuCash Portable — accounting, expenses and financial management
• Gnumeric Portable — full-featured spreadsheet
• Jarte Portable (Freeware) — lightweight, tabbed word processor
• KchmViewer Portable — full-featured CHM viewer
• KeepNotePortable — note taking and organization
• LibreOffice Portable — word processor, spreadsheet, presentations with excellent compatibility
• Money Manager Ex Portable — easy-to-use personal finance software
• Mozilla Sunbird, Portable Edition — Calendar and task management with a familiar interface
• Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition (Address Book) — Email client’s full featured address book
• PDFTK Builder Portable — split, collate, watermark and password protect PDF documents
• PDF-XChange Editor Portable (Freeware) — PDF editor and viewer
• PDF-XChange Viewer Portable (Freeware) — PDF viewer
• PNotes Portable — sticky notes to go
• QOwnNotes Portable — markdown note-taker
• RedNotebook Portable — modern journal and diary
• Scribus Portable — desktop publishing
• Sigil Portable — WYSIWYG ebook editor
• SpeedCrunch Portable — an intuitive algebraic calculator
• Stickies Portable (Freeware) — lightweight sticky notes
• Sumatra PDF Portable — PDF, Comic Book, and E-book Reader
• Task Coach Portable — to do list and task manager
• The Guide Portable — two-pane outliner
• WinDjView Portable — a lightweight DjVu viewer
• ZoomIt Portable (Freeware) — live screen zooming and annotation

Notes

PNotes

PNotes Portable is an easy to use sticky notes manager with skins, flexible display options, and a built-in scheduler. You can place it on your USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive or a CD and use it on any computer, without leaving any personal information behind.

Download: PNotes for Windows (Free)

Stickies

Are you the kind of person with lots of paper sticky notes lying around? Then ditch them all and try this. Stickies is a lightweight sticky note utility that allows you to place virtual sticky notes on your computer screen.

Download: Stickies for Windows (Free)

Q10 Minimalist Word Processor

Q10 is a distraction-free word processor that completely fills the screen up with the word processor. You have to hit Ctrl + Q or the Windows key to leave the interface.

Q10 comes with and without spell checking. Its version with spell check enabled has an installed size of 896 kilobytes. It’s easily the slimmest word processor that I’m aware of.

Aside from the optional spell-check feature, you also get a word and page count. Otherwise, that’s everything.

Download: Q10 Minimalist Word Processor for Windows (Free)

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition Legacy 78.14.0 (web browser) Released

PortableApps.com is proud to announce the release of Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition Legacy 78.14.0. It’s the Extended Support Release of the popular Mozilla Firefox web browser bundled with a PortableApps.com Launcher as a portable app. It is intended for web developers and extension developers to test against. Individual users should use standard Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition for everyday use. It’s a great way to test your sites and extensions in multiple versions of Firefox. It’s packaged in PortableApps.com Format so it can easily integrate with the PortableApps.com Platform. And it’s open source and completely free.

Mozilla, Firefox and the Firefox logo are registered trademarks of the Mozilla Foundation and are used under license.

or in the PortableApps.com Platform.

Media Editors

Audacity

Audacity is the best free audio editor around. It should be in everyone’s toolbox. Not only is it easy to learn, Audacity is versatile. It can cut, copy, splice, and mix audio, record live files, change the speed and pitch of a recording, and import/export some obscure file formats.

Download: Audacity Portable for Windows (Free)

CDex

CDex is the best, easiest, and fastest CD ripper ever made. It has the ability to rip the discs into MP3 files, along with its metadata (by connecting with a «remote database»). You can add all of the music to new playlists, as well as have the computer shutdown when the ripping has finished, so this is an ideal «start it and go to bed» app.

It’s important to note that CDex is better than the paid apps out there. Don’t bother with the rest if you need to pull audio tracks off a CD.

Download: CDex for Windows (Free)

MP3tag

If CDex doesn’t cut it for managing your massive music library, then that’s where the tag editor Mp3tag comes in. Simply load the relevant songs into MP3tag, and from there you can fix the title of the song, the singer/band, album name, and album artwork. Save your work and bingo, your MP3 files are fixed.

Download: MP3tag for Windows (Free)

Avidemux

Avidemux is a video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering, and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue, and powerful scripting capabilities.

Download: Avidemux for Windows (Free)

VirtualDub

VirtualDub Portable is a video-capture and video-processing app. It includes batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files. It can also be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images.

Download: VirtualDub for Windows (Free)

Miscellaneous

Etcher

I’ve tried many different image-burning portable app, like Rufus and UNetbootin. The most user-friendly and well-designed application for burning images is Etcher. Etcher automatically performs validation checks on completed image burns. And on top of that, it’s one of the most user-friendly portable apps around.

If you ever need to create a live Linux USB drive, look no further than Etcher.

Download: Etcher for Windows (Free)

LicenseCrawler

At some point, you are going to need to wipe your computer. Whatever the reason, you are going to need the license keys for all of your paid software, and I am willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that you don’t already have them written down. Am I right?

Download: LicenseCrawler for Windows (Free)

ToddlerTrap

This app has two purposes. What it does is that it disables the keys on your keyboard, for when you are away from the computer. So first, this can be used to stop your children from deleting and ruining that 100-page report to your boss. But second, and this is what I use it for, it can be used to clean the keyboard without watching the keys go crazy on your monitor.

Download: ToddlerTrap for Windows (Free)

LinuxLive USB Creator

Linux is a great alternative system if you are tired of the usual Windows or Mac scene. And we have covered Linux extensively over the years. LinuxLive USB Creator is an app which easily and effortlessly installs any version of Linux onto your USB stick. It falls under the «even your grandma could do it» category.

Download: LinuxLive USB Creator for Windows (Free)

UNetbootin

UNetbootin can take an ISO image and burn it into a USB stick. That’s useful for when you need an installable medium for holding a Linux distribution. In my opinion, UNetbootin works even better than LinuxLive USB Creator because of its simplicity and ease of use.

Download: UNetbootin for Windows (Free)