Free Portable Software
Portable Office Software
- Abiword [Win (6.3 mb)
- OpenOffice [Win (65 mb)
- PDF Viewers: Sumatra [Win (1.1 mb) ], Foxit PDF Reader [Win, (1.8 mb) ]
- Notepad ++ – feature-rich Notepad replacement.
Portable Email/Calendar/ToDo Programs
- Mozilla ThunderBird – [Win (6 mb), Cross-Platform (Win)] – very good email client (built-in address book, import/export, tons of addons)
- Calendars: Mozilla Sunbird [Win, 5.6mb], Sunbird [Mac, 9.7mb], Lightning [Win, 1.3mb) - ThunderBird addon
- Mail [Mac] – requires locally installed Mail.app
- iCal [Mac] – requires locally installed iCal.app
- Address Book [Mac] – requires locally installed Address Book
- Quick Mailer [Win, 20kb] – tiny program for sending quick e-mail messages
- gDisk [Mac, 1020kb] – handy program that turns your gmail account into a portable hard drive. (More stuff for gmail)
Portable Text and Voice Messengers
- All-in-One (Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, etc.): Gaim [Win, 6.9 mb], Miranda IM [Win, 1.2 mb], Adium [Mac, 15.5mb], Trillian [Win]
- iChat [Mac] – requires locally installed iChat
- Newspeak [Mac, 1mb] – Newspeak Cocoa IRC client
- Skype – exlpains how to make skype portable
Portable Media Tools (Audio / Video)
- Audacity [Win (2.4 mb), Mac (5mb)] – simple audio editor and recorder
- VLC [Win (9.3 mb), Mac (24 mb)] – powerful media player that plays almost all popular audio and video formats
- K-Lite Mega Codec Pack with Media Player (resource unaccessible) – another powerful media player for playing all conceivable formats
- iShout [Mac, 7mb] – record and listen to your favorite internet radios.
- CocoaJT [Mac, 8.7mb] – stream live TV programs from major broadcast channels.
Portable Graphics Viewers and Image Editors
- GIMP [Win (8.6 mb), Mac (87.5 mb)] – free alternative to Photoshop
- IrfanView [Win, 1013kb] – fast graphic viewer with basic image editing features
- XNView [Win, Mac, Linux] – image viewer and converter (supports more then 400 image formats)
- Inkscape [Mac, 24.6mb] – scalable vector graphics editor
Portable Browsers and Internet Tools (FTP, Feedreaders, Torrent Clients…)
- Firefox [Win (5.8 mb), Cross-platform (Win)]
- Other browsers: Opera [Win], Safari – requires installed safari
- Feedreaders (RSS, Atom …): GreatNews [Win], Sage [Win, 0.2 mb]
- FTP Clients: Filezilla [Win, 2.3 mb], FireFTP [Win, 0.1mb]
- TrayURL [Win] – bookmark manager
- uTorrent [Win] – popular torrent downloader
- Antivirus: ClamWin [Win, 5.9mb], Dr.Web CureIt [Win, 5.5 mb]
- Keepass Password [Win, 1mb] – securely store and manage your passwords
- Omziff [Win, 0.5mb] – lets you encrypt/decrypt a file, using secure encryption algorithms. Also includes a password generator, file shredder, file splitter and some more tools.
- LockNote [Win] – simple text file that lets you store sensitive info with 256bit password encryption.
- RoboFor2Go [Win] – secure password manager and form filler
- Smart Sniff [Win, 57kb] – lets you inspect network traffic that passes via your network adapter.
- Sudoku – popular puzzle game
- Bricks2000 – popular tetris clone
- Logix – something similar to minesweeper
- Gem Drop – fast-paced puzzle game
- GeneRally – 2D racing game
- Nagaskaki – chess game
- NarkoMania – cool minesweeper clone
- NeverBall – part puzzle, part action game
- 7Zip [Win, 1.1 mb] – file archiver and compressor, supports 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, RAR and more
- Registry Tweaker [Win, 1.52mb] – registry tweaking tool
- Restoration [Win, 229kb] – handy program for recovering deleted (or formatted) files
- YamiPod [Win] – powerful iPod manager (copy mp3/AAC files to and from your iPod, import/export playlists, search for songs, remove duplicates,..). More iPod tools
- Drive Manager [Win, 1191 kb] – quick summary for each local and removable drive.
- PStart – lets you organize and create menu-like list for quicker access to your portable programs.
- SyncPAppX – script that syncs preferences between portable and local applications.
- RQ Money – handy utlity to manage your credits and debts
- SIW – a system analysis tool that tells you almost everything you need to know about a computer, i.e. hardware, configuration settings, etc.
- WinAudit – one more analysis tool
- Convert [Win, 155 kb] – fast metric unit conversion tool (distance, temperature, volume, time, speed, mass…)
- UK Calender [Win, 321kb] – straightforward calendar with ToDo and reminders
- CPU-Z [Win] – provides detailed info about your processor and other components
- Country Codes [Win, 1358 kb] – a small database of country codes and additional information for all countries.
- TreePad Lite [Win, 866kb] – personal database program, lets you store all your notes, emails, bookmarks, etc. into one well-structured file
- StartupList [Win, 158 kb] – displays all items that are in any way related to your computer startup and are executed without any user interactions
- eTextReader [Win, 279kb] – read plain text files provided by Project Gutenberg in a book-like manner.
- Index Your Files [Win, 640kb] – provides an easy way to create index databases (of specified folders and drives) for quick file/term search
- RockXP [win, 768kb] – handy utility for retrieving Win XP’s product key
- WhoisThisDomain [Win, 42kb] – view owner and registration info for any domain name
- Converter – portable unit convertsion utility
Portable Developer Tools (Techies Only)
- Nvu [Win (7.3 mb) - easy-to-use webpage editor. Simpler alternative to Dreamweaver and Microsft Frontpage
- Server2Go - apache webserver (no configurations needed)
- InstantRails[Win, 60mb] – contains Ruby, Rails, Apache, and MySQL, all preconfigured and ready to run.
- Putty [Win, 0.9 mb] – lightweight telnet and SSH client
- Follow-Me IP – displays your external IP address
- XAMPP [Win, 25/17 mb] – integrated server package of Apache, mySQL, PHP and Perl. Just Unzip and Run
- HTTP File Server [Win] – simple and easy-to-use file server for personal file sharing.
- CurrPorts [Win, 46kb]- lets you view a list of ports that are currently in use, along with applications that use them
- FTP Servers: Quick’n Easy FTP Server [Win, 355kb]
- PortableApps Suite [Win, 89.5mb] – includes 7 programs for essential needs (office, email, IM client, etc.) + cool Startup manager and backup utility
Portable Operating Systems (’HowTo’ Articles)
USB ThumDrive Tips
That’s mainly it… In case you’re looking for something that wasn’t mentioned above, there are a couple of resources you may want to check out. These are Portablefreeware.com and Tinyapps.org