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What is better portable or regular version of the program. Portable programs - everything about them, what they are and why

Which became quite popular when inexpensive removable media appeared, for a long period of time it does not surprise anyone, but the constant debate about the advantages and disadvantages does not subside to this day. There are users who praise. Others, on the contrary, scold. Still others both praise and scold. Let's approach this question rationally and determine if portable software development can be considered the best solution.

Equally right are those who do not approve of portable soft, as well as those who idolize it. All due to the fact that portable applications and requiring installation have certain advantages / disadvantages. Let's look at the biggest pros and cons portable software, which will allow you to determine the most profitable solution.

1. An indisputable plus"Portable", of course, can be considered the ability in most cases to run from a removable drive - a flash drive, optical disc and other. With this mobility, the user will be able to work with their favorite applications in an Internet cafe or office, on any computer. You will only need to insert the flash drive into the usb port and select the required file.

2. There are no traces of the portable software in the registry. Of course, this statement is not entirely true. Every application, even the smallest one, creates various entries in the system registry during startup. Their number is incomparable with the case when you have to work with installation packages standard applications... Regular software is literally registered in the structure of the registry. When a key is removed, the software simply ceases to function. With portable applications, this case is out of the question.

3. Portable soft, which should be clear anyway, there is no need to install. It is very easy to work with him. Some classic programs during installation, they create about five to six separate requests to the user. Thus, deadlock situations cannot be ruled out - you have to put a tick in front of one or another option.

4. There is no clogging of the file system personal computer... Not to mention Program folder Files, where the program is located as standard, during installation, the utility copies required files to the system directory, Common Files, back in Documents and Settings. When an application is uninstalled, individual file records persist. As a result, it gets clogged file system that begins to resemble a dump. This cannot be said about portable applications which save their files in one directory.

5. Performance after reinstalling the operating system. If you decide to remove Windows, in this situation you will need to get rid of all installed applications. Of course, they will have to be reinstalled later. When it comes about portable software, you can copy the required folder to removable storage, and when the reinstallation of the operating system is over, move it back and continue working as if nothing had happened. But, as practice shows, this method does not work in all cases.

6. In addition, the bulk of portable software is distributed absolutely free of charge. In this case, you do not need special licenses, keys, keygens, cracks and other tricks to work.

There are portable programs and certain negative sides.
The reader may find them not serious enough, but believe me, they are not!

1. Slow work... Selected portable editions of applications, especially big size, For example, Photoshop or Word, can often slow down.

2. If there is a poor-quality porting, similar applications in some cases they do not work correctly. You can find a lot in common with paid software - you need to specify license code, trial editions are often used and more.

3. Incompatibility (correlation) with many software products, as well as modules, due to the lack of registration in the internal part system registry. This condition can cause one application to stop detecting another. For example, the portable edition of Photoshop may not work or may malfunction. The same goes for various plugins and other add-ons.

4. Not every portable software can be started from removable media without creating a a large number of errors on the pages of the magazine called "System". Note that using the system drive "C" does not lead to such troubles.

5. Problem with updating in automatic mode... Many portable applications do not notify the user when a new edition is available.

6. When reinstalling occurs, in some cases you have to understand the local options, save directories, configure the interface. However, this does not happen with every portable utility.

7. In general, large and powerful applications are difficult to port, so different useful functions, as well as fine tuning programmers give up completely.

8. The biggest drawback of portable applications is reduced functionality. This can be seen when working with large and powerful utilities... In such cases, individual functionality or missing, or acting incorrectly.

Let's summarize
It is clear that two types of software have both negative and positive sides... In one case, we see mobility, convenience and simplicity (portable applications), in the other - good functionality, stability (applications that need to be installed). Giving preference to any one option is probably an extreme. Not the last place in our life is occupied by chance. Where you cannot use installation applications, good decision there will be portable software, in reverse situation- regular applications. Maybe portable developments will loudly declare themselves in the future ... For now, let's not rush things. It is impossible to say that portable utilities can completely replace installation ones today!

Modern flash drives and external hard disks have already reached enormous volumes, which allows you to store all necessary software and actually carry it in your pocket. But you can install on removable media only special portable versions of programs, which our today's article is devoted to.

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What is a portable program?

Portable program (in English "portable application") - portable software that does not need to be installed on HDD computer to run and use. This category includes programs that are easily installed on a USB flash drive, external HDD, CD, DVD, Bly-ray discs in the usual way, as well as those that work without installation at all. This is convenient for many reasons: you do not need to install the same programs on several PCs, at work you can use your favorite browser, email client, ICQ without any complaints from the outside system administrator and manuals, all data is stored on removable media and very easy to copy, etc. Another obvious plus of Portable programs is that they are free, at least, for private (non-commercial) use. Although you can find portable versions on the Internet and paid programs such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop.

What is the secret of Portable programs? Everything is very simple. When you install a regular application on your computer, it has the peculiarity of saving its files to different folders on your PC hard drive. In addition to the familiar Program Files directory, parts of programs can be found in user folders, temporary directories, etc. Therefore, when we try to copy the program simple transfer its folder from Program Files to another computer, nothing happens. The software cannot find the required config files and completely refuses to function.

This is not the case with portable applications. The program is installed in the folder assigned to it on removable media, without affecting the computer's hard drive and registry, and will work fine regardless of which PC you connect the USB flash drive to. To copy a program, you just need to move its directory to another removable media. Many applications do not require installation, they can be copied and run from anywhere. But keep in mind that Portable programs designed for one operating system will not function on another. In other words, if you are using the portable version of the Firefox browser on Linux, it will not work on a Mac OS or Windows computer.

Where can I find portable programs?

The family of Portable applications is very large. Most popular programs of this type collected on a special site http://portableapps.com/. Of the Russian-language resources, http://www.usbsoft.ru/ stands out. Also, portable versions of applications can be found on the official websites of their developers or use search engines without forgetting to add the word "portable" to the query. For example Firefox portable.

1. Office applications

On sites dedicated to Portable software, you can find over a dozen convenient and functional portable versions of programs for working with text, spreadsheets, daily planning, PDF viewer and DjVu files and other purposes.

First place among office applications occupies the free office suite OpenOffice.org, although many users prefer portable Word versions and Excel from the Microsoft Office suite. Portable version also available text editor AbiWord.

For viewing PDF files, it is convenient to use Foxit Reader, Sumatra PDF, PDF-XChange Viewer or Cool PDF Reader... But many e-books supplied in DjVu format. You can open such files using WinDjView programs which works without installation.

2. Programs for the Internet

This category includes browsers, ICQ and e-mail clients, Skype, torrent and FTP clients, etc. Traditionally the leader among email clients Mozilla thunderbird, which not only knows how to receive and send mail, but also has many useful features.

Portable versions of browsers were not created only by lazy developers: Firefox, Chrome and Opera are easily installed on removable media so that you can access the Internet wherever possible. Moreover, Opera has this feature relatively recently, even in the standard installer. We have already written that it is enough to download the regular version of the browser and, during installation, simply indicate the USB flash drive attached to the PC or external hard disk.

It's even easier with ICQ clients. In addition to the traditional portable versions of Miranda IM and Pidgin, on removable drive with the proper ingenuity, you can also settle QIP. To do this, you need to download a zip or rar archive with the program from the official website www .qip .ru and unpack it into separate folder on a USB flash drive. In this case, your profile folder should also be created on removable media. In it, among other things, the sent files and the history of the correspondence will be stored. By the way, it is convenient to unpack and pack archives using the portable version of 7-Zip.

Those who like to connect to servers via SSH and Telnet protocols in mandatory will start on a USB flash drive convenient client with the modest size of PuTTY, but for working with sites via FTP there are several simple and functional Portable programs: WinSCP, FileZilla, FireFTP. Latest app is an add-on for Firefox that will have to be installed on removable media in addition to this wonderful browser.

File Far manager, although not presented in the list of standard portable programs, it can serve not only for working with files on any computer, but also act as a Portable FTP client.

To download files from torrent networks, there is nothing better than a small portable program µTorrent, which we previously wrote about working with on the pages of Yachaynik.

3. Programs for working with graphics

If the capabilities of online image editors are not enough for you, you should think about portable versions. graphic editors... The leader in this list is free gimp, in terms of functionality, practically not inferior to the familiar to many Adobe Photoshop. There are also programs for 3D modeling and animation, which include Blender and K-3D Portable.

To create ico files you need IcoFX, and with vector drawings you can work in Inkscape. Moreover, the arsenal of portable applications has many solutions for viewing and simple actions with images. FastStone leads here Image Viewer and XnView.

4. System security and monitoring

Everyone is familiar with the situation when a computer infected with viruses cannot boot into normal mode or starts to slow down terribly. Here you need to have a whole set of a young fighter against evil spirits, since there are plenty of Portable versions of well-known antivirus and system utilities. First on this list we will, of course, put Dr. Web CureIt. How many users this utility has saved from reinstalling the system and losing data. It works without installation and can be launched from any removable media... Download latest version Dr. Web CureIt with fresh anti-virus databases can be found on the official website www .drweb .com

It will also be useful AVZ utility from Oleg Zaitsev, who knows how not only to catch viruses and Trojans, but also to conduct a comprehensive audit of the system for the presence of an infection and to fight it safely. You can get AVZ at www.z-oleg.com/secur/avz/. The program does not require installation, it is enough to unpack the downloaded archive into a directory on removable media.

The PootkitBuster utility from by Trend Micro. It does not require installation, but it should be run on computers with Windows Vista and 7 as an administrator.

Numerous system utilities: Starter, Autoruns, CurrPorts, Process Explorer, ProcessMonitor, Regmon, srvinstw. They do not require standard installation and can be run from any removable media or drive. The functionality of these programs is very wide - from monitoring processes and the registry to deleting unnecessary elements startup and service, and view the list and end of open network connections.

5. Getting information about the system

Sometimes you need to urgently find out all the comprehensive information about the computer. Utilities such as CPU-Z and WinAudit will help with this. They do not require installation, are small in size, simple and convenient to use.

CPU-Z will tell you the main characteristics of the processor, motherboard, random access memory and video cards. The developers are constantly improving the utility. New versions are released quite often, and all you need to do is update the program on removable media in a timely manner.

WinAudit provides full information about the software installed on the computer, the operating system settings, the network and the characteristics of the PC hardware.

6. Programs for working with multimedia and burning discs

There are quite a few portable applications in this category, differing in functionality. So, to watch the video it is convenient to use VLC Media Player. To edit the video will help portable version to all famous program VirtualDub, and InfraRecorder is suitable for recording the created video to disk. You can listen to your favorite music in the favorite AIMP player from Russian developers.

As you can see, to date, many portable applications have been created that can satisfy even the most demanding user. Which of them will settle on your flash drive is up to you, and we, perhaps, will complete our story and wish you many interesting and useful Portable programs.

Especially for Yachaynik, Elena Carlton

Portable programs or portable versions of applications are designed to simplify the user's work on a PC.

Such software allows you not to waste time on installation, to use programs even in operating systems ah with maximum settings security and lets you work in the system, even if you do not have administrative rights.

They usually use portable programs on computers where the installation of third-party software is undesirable or impossible (both for security purposes and due to lack of space on the computer).

General information about portable applications

Portable programs are programs that do not require installation on a computer and do not make any changes to the operating system registry during operation.

Mostly applications whose distributions denote portable, have the same functionality as the regular versions. Sometimes developers remove a few resource-intensive features.

Among the advantages of using them are:

  • saving hard disk space. You can work with a portable program without even moving it to a computer - from the same disk or USB-media (and even from a smartphone) on which it was recorded;
  • the absence of a warning about the need to run the application only under account administrator. Most common applications require a password or appropriate user rights. Portable versions eliminate this need;
  • the ability to launch the application from any folder. Thus, you can put all such portable programs in one folder or sort by any in a convenient way without fear that they will stop working.

Who makes portable builds

The production and distribution of assemblies of portable applications, as a rule, is done by enthusiasts who strive to make software convenient not only for themselves, but also for other network users.

Sometimes a portable program can be found on the manufacturers' official resources.

For example, Google is releasing a portable Chrome browser, updating its versions at the same frequency as for the regular version.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus has an official portable version of Curelt that can scan the system for malicious code without installing it on a computer.

Where can I find portable software?

The search for portable programs and entire collections should be started on the sites of the same enthusiasts who are engaged in their creation:

  • one of best options- LiberKey portal;
  • a good selection is also offered by the Free Soft website, which contains programs and ready-made sets of portable applications;
  • another fairly popular resource Portablik, where you can find several thousand portable versions of popular software;
  • there are enough applications on the Portable Soft page.

Advice: These pages provide a selection of programs for almost any task. However, to look for specific applications, you should first try on the manufacturer's websites - this way you prevent infection of your computer. malicious code which can be embedded in the program.

Top Apps

In order to download the best portable software, you should know which programs can be attributed to this category - there are quite a few options for such applications, and there may not be time to check the functionality and usability of each.

It is worth paying attention primarily to the following programs:

  • VLC Media Player Portable and MPlayer Portable allow you to listen to audio and watch video without installing a special player on your computer;
  • suitable for editing audio tracks Portable AIMP or Audacity Portable;
  • you can edit the video using VirtualDub Portable, sufficiently functional not only for capturing and cutting video sequences, but also for dubbing films;
  • Portable recuva will allow you to quickly restore lost files even from a formatted disk;
  • Dr. Web CureIt! – portable version Kaspersky Anti-Virus. Has no function automatic update anti-virus databases, because of which it requires periodic downloading of a new distribution kit;
  • Simple Machine Protect- not bad free antivirus, which also includes the management of system processes;
  • 7-Zip Portable, free app for data compression, capable of replacing WinRAR archiver(paid by default);
  • GIMP Portable- portable version of the program for image editing. Inferior in functionality Adobe photoshop(a portable version of which can also be found on the net), but is quite suitable for home use;
  • XNView Full Portable, an application for viewing and editing almost any kind of images;
  • Portable DeepBurner 1.9, a convenient and easy-to-use program for burning CDs and DVDs;
  • OpenOffice Portable, a package, the functionality of which when working with documents is not inferior to the regular version, including working with texts, spreadsheets and mathematical expressions;
  • AbiWord Portable, a good free and, moreover, does not require installation on a computer, a replacement for a paid Microsoft package Office;
  • Mozilla Firefox Portable, Opera USB Portable and Chrome Portable- the same browsers that may already be installed on your PC, but more convenient. For example, thanks to the ability to use your favorite and familiar browser while at someone else's computer.

Where and how to make a USB flash drive with programs?

To create portable programs, there are special utilities- such as, for example, Cameyo or Portable P-Apps... However, in addition to the presence on the flash drive of the programs themselves that do not require installation, it is also desirable to properly manage them using the platforms, which we will talk about below.

PortableApps is a software shell that can be downloaded from the manufacturer's website. After downloading, the application will offer you an impressive list of portable software that can be written to a USB flash drive.

By selecting (ticking) the appropriate options, you will receive them on the media and can be easily managed without looking for the distribution kit in different folders. The platform allows you to provide backup documents and files, change shell parameters, add or remove programs from the list.

LiberKey - no less comfortable and multifunctional program, allowing you to create a USB flash drive with portable software.

After downloading, it allows you to download any applications from a fairly wide and constantly updated assortment from the developers' site. As a result of the download, portable applications are placed in a kind of container, where they can be controlled using a convenient menu with a customizable interface.

Portable but unsafe

You can find dozens of versions of various portable applications and their sets on the Internet, but it is best to download them from the developers' sites, and not from unfamiliar torrent trackers, from where you can easily download a virus to your computer.

Advice: look at the extension of the downloaded file. It is undesirable to download an archive or an executable application.

However, some users my own experience know that portable software is often infected with malicious code. Using even a proven service to receive new version portable programs, do not forget to scan it with an antivirus.

Among other things, it is worth ensuring the safety of the portable software itself - when connected to other people's computers, the information on the flash drive can be destroyed. Therefore, it is advisable to do backup such a disk.

Outcomes

The advantages of portable programs allow you to use them on any computer.

The range offered by the developers of such software is wide enough to launch and edit multimedia files with their help, work with documents on the network, archive data, create images and even recover lost files.

In most cases, such programs are able to replace versions that require installation, however, for your computer, in the absence of contraindications, you should choose ordinary applications that are more functional, fast and stable.

My pleasure. Well, to begin with, both the author of the article and you call these programs incorrectly. Moreover, these programs are incorrectly named by almost the entire Runet. All because of the English word "portable", which has turned from someone's light hand into "portable". In fact, this word is translated - "portable". AND correct translation already practically answers your second question. After all, portable means portable, mobile, etc. That is, a portable program is a program that can be transferred (on a USB flash drive, for example) and does not need to be installed on a computer. If we are to explain on the fingers, then one should start with the fact that when downloading a program, as a rule, the source site specifies whether the program is portable or installable. Let's go further. Regular (installed) programs are executable file by running which, you start the installation. As a rule, by default, programs are installed along the path C: \ Program Files \ XXX, where XXX is the program folder (most often named after the program). But the user, if he wishes, can install the program in another location he needs, and even on another disk (if there is one). And here in this XXX folder there are many different files, thanks to which the program works correctly. Also, the installed programs are still registered in the registry, but that's another story (I think you don't need this). But portable programs do not need to be installed. The executable itself and launches the program. The user can place this file in any folder convenient to him, or on a USB flash drive, in order to run it later on another computer. I would also like to note that portable programs are different. There are some that require unpacking, not to be confused with installation. This concerns powerful programs, from a number of Adobe or games. Portable programs have many advantages: they don't require installation, they just work. installed Windows, all settings are saved in their database without affecting the system registry, they can be used on any computer under the Windows system, they take up much less space than the installation option and in 99% do not leave traces on the PC. If you want to determine whether the program on your computer is portable or not, I suggest using this option: click on the program shortcut right click mouse, in the drop-down menu select "Properties" and in the window that opens select the tab "Details". If among the lines that appear there is a line "Path to folder" with the prescribed path, then the program is installed, if there is no such line, then it is portable. Good luck.

CPU-Z is one of the most popular programs among overclockers, users who are overclocking their computer. This application will serve as an excellent assistant in improving the performance of your system, will allow you to track some important parameters, after optimization of parameters and BIOS values your motherboard. The tool will provide information about the processor, motherboard, about the video adapter and RAM. The tool will provide information about the processor, motherboard, video adapter and RAM.

Chromium is fast and convenient browser for working with web pages and applications, a browser project with an open source code which aims to create a safer, faster and more stable experience for all Internet users. Chromium can run on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux and provides roughly the same set of features as Google chrome(their interfaces are also identical).

MediaMonkey - free version a great tool for organizing music as well as editing tags in your music library with a powerful, intuitive, multilingual interface. The program supports automatic search, Album Art tags and other metadata. Manage over fifty thousand files in your music collection easily. It is also possible to manage various genres and directions of audio, support for podcasts.

Mozilla Firefox - the most popular browser to navigate the Internet. Among the large list of similar free programs for Windows, this web browser is, if not the best, then one of the favorites. Has a whole list of advantages that should have modern browsers... The main ones can be distinguished as follows: speed of work, ease of use, user interface that can be customized to your liking. Has a number of additional settings thanks to which ..

VideoCacheView - small free utility, which does not require installation into the system, was created so that after watching the video on the website, you can save the video file to local disk for viewing in offline... If the video file is stored in the browser cache, this program can help you extract the video file from the cache and save it in the folder you need. It will automatically scan the entire cache of Internet Explorer or Mozilla based web browsers (including Firefox) and find all video files that are currently in it. If you have a movie player that can play FLV files, it also allows you to play videos directly from the browser cache.

Pale moon - free browser which loads pages 25% faster than Mozilla, Mozilla provides a non-optimized browser for Windows. The Pale Moon project is built and optimized for Firefox browsers on Windows operating systems. Make sure to get maximum speed from your browser! The authors of the program have carefully selected the best features and removed the not-so-popular ones. Several carefully selected features have been disabled that are not in high demand, which interfere with the loading of web pages, thus maximizing the speed and efficiency of the browser.

WinSCP - is an FTP and SFTP client for Windows systems open source that also supports the old SCP protocol. It enables secure transfer of data and files between different computers and allows the use of a secure "tunnel" of sorts. The program has built-in additional tools, supports all basic file operations.

- new build of the program, easy and safe free program to work with by e-mail... Thunderbird offers great potential for convenient processing e-mails, allows you to manage a large list of contacts and perform many other operations. In Mozilla Thunderbird there is a powerful spam filter that can be trained while working with the application. Currently, there are many add-ons that greatly expand the capabilities of the program.

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