Portable applications do not need to be installed. You can even run them from a USB flash drive. See the best portable applications for each genre.
Portable (or in Greek "portable") applications do not need to be installed. All you have to do is download, decompress the file to its own folder and then just run the executable program file to get started.
This means you can put multiple portable applications on a USB flash drive, and run them from any Windows computer.
That is, you can use them on your friend's computer, at work, at school, in the Internet cafe. As a portable application it is more secure than applications already installed on public or friendly machines.
And there are MANY portable applications. More than you think. Many of them are already in use with a regular installation. Which ones are worth using? The following is the main list of the best portable applications by type of software.
Software Types: Communication | Games | Image Editors | Image Viewers | Media Editors | Media Player | Miscellaneous | Productivity | Security & Privacy | System Tools | Text Editors | Web Tools
Pidgin
Pidgin is a fully open source cross-platform messaging client that uses the XMPP protocol. XMPP allows you to connect to accounts like Slack, IRC, Google, Yahoo Messenger, etc., all in one program, if you're an old-school internet junkie.
Download: Pidgin Portable for Windows (free) . See the section that says “If you're looking for a portable version that doesn't need installation, we also have that available”. Alternatively, you can download it from here.
Telegram
Telegram is one of the most well-known alternative solutions for communication. After the suicide of Whatsapp , Telegram, Viber, Signal, took a big piece of the pie from it. Of the three programs, only Telegram works as a portable application.
Overall, it is an excellent and secure alternative to a chaotic marketplace with questionable messaging applications. However, while the Telegram application is open source, the servers that handle Telegram data are not open source.
Download: Telegram Portable for Windows (free)
Brutal Chess
If you are a fan of chess, then you will find many portable chess games. One of them is Brutal Chess. This is a 3-D game, open source, that will keep you glued to your computer for several hours.
Download: Brutal Chess for Windows (free)
Patience
Patience is basically the Windows 95 version of Solitaire. It has music, animation and many other features that make it the first standalone version of Solitaire on the internet. It has 200 built-in card games.
The Portable version has a small catch. You need to use Universal Extractor to export the files as portable and then go to the folder and run it. Everything is explained on the download page.
Download: Patience for Windows (free)
Sudoku
Sudoku Portable is an addictive puzzle game originally created in France 100 years ago.
It has a 9 × 9 grid that contains 9 3 × 3 grids. In it you arrange the numbers 1 to 9. However, each number can only appear once in each of the 9 3 × 3 grids. And it can only appear once in each row and in each column.
It's a simple idea, but it can quickly become addictive. The program is open source and of course free.
Download: Sudoku Portable for Windows (free)
GIMP
Who does not know GIMP? "Poor Photoshop" because GIMP mimics many of Photoshop's capabilities, except that you do not pay a single euro.
In addition, like Photoshop, GIMP has many features and many tutorials.
Download: GIMP for Windows (free)
XnView
A nice simple application that can scan your hard drive and present you with images in an easy to use view. In addition to viewing, you can also view the properties of the images, including EXIF data.
You can import 400 different file formats and export your photos to one of 50 file formats. Plus slide shows, print support, resize and parallel comparison.
Download: XnView for Windows (free)
OpenShot Video Editor
The free open source application OpenShot Video Editor offers you a very powerful video editor that was designed to be easy to use and very quick to learn.
The application is constantly evolving and utilizing the codecs that are already installed on your system.
Download: OpenShot Video Editor Portable for Windows (free)
Audacity
Audaci
ty is a free multi-platform audio program for recording and editing audio files. The application is cross-platform and thus released for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and BSD.
Audacity was created by Dominic Mazzoni when he was a student at Carnegie Mellon University. Mazzoni is now working on Google but remains the main project maintainer with the help of many people around the world.
The application can, among other things, record live audio via microphone or mixer, and digitize recordings from other media. With some sound cards and any recent version of Windows, Audacity can also record audio streaming.
Download: Audacity for Windows (free)
VLC Player
VLC Player needs no introduction. The program handles almost every media file format you could want. It plays DVDs, streaming videos, and music.
It's free, open source, and most people just install it for all their media needs. But it also exists in a portable version. Just download the zip format from the official website.
Download: VLC Player Portable for Windows (free)
Rufus
Rufus is a popular, lightweight tool for creating bootable flash drives, e.g. for installing Windows or Linux on another computer system.
Despite the small size of the application, Rufus provides everything you need and is quite fast.
Download: Rufus for Windows (free)
Clear Disk Info
Clear Disk Info is a free program for Microsoft Windows devices that provides a clear picture of the health of connected storage devices.
Monitoring storage devices is essential when working with computer systems. Failure of a storage device could result in data loss or damage to system files. You just run it from flash usb and it tells you what condition your disks are in.
Download: Clear Disk Info for Windows (free)
7-zip
7-Zip is an open source program that can compress and decompress files. It supports a number of formats including 7z, ZIP, Gzip, bzip2, xz, tar, and WIM.
The application also supports decompression of APM, ARJ, CHM, cpio, DEB, FLV, JAR, LHA / LZH, LZMA, MSLZ, Office Open XML, onepkg, RAR, RPM, smzip, SWF, XAR and Z, CramFS, DMG, FAT, HFS, ISO, MBR, NTFS, SquashFS, UDF, VHD disk images.
Download: 7-zip for Windows (free)
LibreOffice
LibreOffice is available as a portable app. I recommend installing it if you have the storage space. However, if you don't have the storage space, LibreOffice is an amazing portable app and one of the best free alternatives to Microsoft Office.
Download: LibreOffice for Windows (free)
PDF-XChange Editor
PDF-XChange Editor is a lightweight PDF editor and pdf viewer that lets you create, view, edit, annotate, edit OCR, and digitally sign PDF files.
While most features are free, some features require payment and are clearly indicated. They will place a watermark on your exit. These features can be hidden by selecting File> Preferences> Record - select "Hide all features from toolbars and menus".
Download: PDF-XChange Editor for Windows (Free)
KeePass
Not a day goes by without news of some sort of password breach being reported on the news. It is important that you do not use the same passwords for different accounts again. Also, make each password a little more difficult than PASSWORD or 12345.
Something like Fh?%Rft#12fd#|I+^gH8\S~5Te is fine. But how do you remember that? Just use a password manager , like KeePass.
KeePass Password Safe is a free, open source, lightweight and easy-to-use password manager for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, with ports for Android, iPhone / iPad and other mobile devices. And it is only portable.
Download: KeePass (free)
Cyber Shredder
If you are selling your computer or are concerned about your security, then CyberShredder should be on your USB stick. The reason you need a secure deletion method is that Windows files can be recovered even after you clean the Windows Recycle Bin.
The Windows Recycle Bin just removes the file and gives you back up disk space, but the file is still there. Anyone who has the right software (directly and easily available on the internet) could bring the file back. CyberShredder is a fast, secure, and easy-to-use utility that allows you to permanently delete secret files from your computer. CyberShredder replaces the space occupied by a file (even if it was deleted with the classic method) with random data and then deletes the file, so that a recovery utility will never be able to recover it.
Download: CyberShredder for Windows (free)
ClamWin
ClamWin is an antivirus program that provides features such as virus detection (obviously) as well as regular virus engine updates. But keep in mind that due to its portable nature, it is not a real-time scanner. This means that it will only detect a virus if you manually pass it a file for testing.
Additionally, scheduled scans and updates are also not possible, so you need to update it manually.
Download: ClamWin for Windows (free)
WinDirStat
WinDirStat allows users to create a visual representation of what is stored on their drives. The resulting visual representation represents each file type using different colors (orange for text files, for example) and sizes (larger blocks mean larger amounts of data).
WinDirStat is the best tool for those who want to lighten a hard drive. Just avoid deleting any programs or files in the Windows directory.
Download: WinDirStat Portable for Windows (free)
CCleaner
We were big fans of CCleaner, until the company got involved with ads. However, you may want to try the portable version.
You definitely need to clean your computer from time to time, from the files that block your system and much more. This is something you need to plan on a regular basis. The downside is that the portable version takes time to start.
Download: CCleaner for Windows (free)
PhotoRec
PhotoRec is file data recovery software designed to recover lost files, including videos, documents, images, compressed, and many more. Although its name refers to photos it can retrieve at least 400 types of files. It's really free, with no traps designed to make you money.
PhotoRec ignores the file system and follows the underlying data, so it will still work even if your media file system is severely damaged or has been reformatted.
It is a basic program for a usb flash because if you want to recover your data you can not perform any installation or write to the disk that has a problem.
Download: PhotoRec for Windows (free)
Notepad + +
It is our favorite application for the Windows environment, as it can replace the default Notepad word processor of the Microsoft operating system, offering more features useful for developers.
Notepad ++ or Notepad PlusPlus is a powerful word processor that offers much more features than Windows Notepad.
Download: Notepad++ for Windows (free)
Tor Browser
Tor Project combines many features in a single package: a Virtual Proxy Network (VPN), a secure browser, and a few other security features. While Tor does not fully protect against unauthorized surveillance, it helps prevent unwanted eavesdropping on your personal business.
While the downloaded package will install itself if you run it, Tor Browser can simply be decompressed and run, which means you do not need to install it.
a. Download the installer, put it in a folder of your choice and unzip it
b. Launch the Tor Browser
c. When prompted, clear the option to add items to the desktop or Start menu, and then answer a few quick questions about your connection.
Download: Tor Browser (free)
Google Chrome
Opinions differ on which is the best browser, but apparently the battle is between Firefox and Chrome. Chrome is the winner in terms of popularity, due to its superior synchronization capabilities, fast network connectivity and interaction with a host of other Google services.
Download: Google Chrome for Windows (free)
qBittorrent
QBittorrent is open source and in active development. Not only is it free, but it is also quite safe. I recommend QBittorrent over other BitTorrent clients (especially uTorrent).
There is also DelugePortable, which is the portable version of the (also) open source BitTorrent Deluge.
Download: qBittorrent Portable for Windows (Free)
This is a standard list of portable applications that a sticker should have. Of course each user depending on what job he does or what hobby he has, can develop or completely change the list.
What is certain is that portable applications are not only these, but much more. We recommend that you check out the website portableapps.com from here , as well as the website portablefreeware.com from here.
In these two sites you will find over 500 portable applications that will satisfy all tastes. Not only do they contain applications that have a portable version on their own, but they have taken care to convert many others into portable, always with the permission of the manufacturer. The only issue is that the built-in ones only run on Windows. Linux owners will be left complaining.
What is certain, however, is that you will never leave the flash usb you make.
Dimitris hates Mondays...
Dimitris, interesting article about protables. Check out what you write about sudoku. Neither French nor old :) American creator, loved by the Japanese who gave him the name sudoku.
Thanks for the comment.
Sudoku does not have a real creator, but everyone, more or less, put a little stone for this game.
See what Wikipedia says about it .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudoku . To be precise, we could not attribute it 100% to an American or a Frenchman.
Ok, all well and good, and we like the punctuation. Let's just say that if someone likes it, they can download it and play.