why use portableapps.com?

FoxEye · 9 May 2011 at 21:14

I'm just wondering, when I see apps like notepad++ (which are already available from their authors as a .zip with no installer) on portableapps.com, what the advantage of the portableapps.com format is?

For some other apps (like 7zip, Firefox), you can achieve the same result simply by extracting the setup.exe file like an archive file.

So who's using portableapps.com, and why?

marc2003 · 9 May 2011 at 21:28

loads of applications will happily run from a folder without installation but they store the settings in your user's appdata folder which means they're leaving a mess on each computer plus the user settings aren't "portable".

portable apps hack them to store settings in the program's own folder.

PR. · 9 May 2011 at 23:02

Use portable Firefox pretty much every day at work, it's handy to have and all the extra apps can be plugged in to a computer and used without having to mess around with separate installs and admin rights

lurkio · 10 May 2011 at 08:15

the clue is in the name .. portable (meaning easy to transport)

I use dozens of the portable versions of apps , no need to install
and if you are like me and have 3 versions of windows on your PC then
it means 1 copy of a program and not 3 seperate installs (portable folder not on
any of the OS drives - on a storage HD)

They are also great for people who use 1 PC in work and another in
the house , you can now carry your apps on a memory stick and
with the new version of the portable apps launcher you can auto update apps
and install new ones easily.

FoxEye · 10 May 2011 at 08:28

lurkio said:
the clue is in the name .. portable (meaning easy to transport)

I use dozens of the portable versions of apps , no need to install
and if you are like me and have 3 versions of windows on your PC then
it means 1 copy of a program and not 3 seperate installs (portable folder not on
any of the OS drives - on a storage HD)

They are also great for people who use 1 PC in work and another in
the house , you can now carry your apps on a memory stick and
with the new version of the portable apps launcher you can auto update apps
and install new ones easily.

The question wasn't "what is portable software good for". I was specifically asking about portableapps.com re-packaging software which in some cases already claims to be portable.

Thankfully marc2003 read the question....

AbsenceJam · 10 May 2011 at 08:44

Well if an application doesn't write anything elsewhere then yes there's no reason to package it as a portable app but since almost every application does this then we need apps properly packaged for portable use.....

boosfuk · 10 May 2011 at 11:05

I try to use portable apps for as many installs as possible and I have nothing from portableapps.com installed (I find they are usually not updated quickly anyway). Most (but I agree not all) apps have portable versions now or at least easy instructions in their support/forums/readme on how to install as a portable app. This is with everything self contained in the install folder and nothing in appdata/programdata etc.