PortableApps.com is a website offering many free, commonly used Windows applications that have been specially packaged for portability. These portable applications can be used from removable media such as USB flash drives. User data is stored in a subfolder, allowing the user to upgrade or move the software without affecting the data. To remove the software, a user can simply delete the main folder. The site was founded by John T. Haller and includes contributions from over 100 people, including developers, designers and translators.
History
The project started out of a portable version of Mozilla Firefox in March 2004. John T. Haller then expanded the project to include Mozilla Thunderbird and OpenOffice.org. Soon the open-source group of portable programs outgrew Haller's personal website and he moved it to a community site, PortableApps.com. The site currently hosts various projects created by forum members. The site is also used for bug reporting and suggestions. Some PortableApps distributions are hosted on SourceForge.
Format
Application installers designed for use with the PortableApps.com menu follow the convention of using filenames ending in a .paf.exe extension, include HTML documentation and store data in the Data directory, allowing for simple backup of data with the PortableApps.com Backup utility. Installers intended for use with the PortableApps.com menu should be NSIS installers, generated with the PortableApps.com Installer, but can be compressed archives with self extractors, or any installer executable. The majority of applications can run on most computers with or later. Many apps will also run under Wine on Unix-likeoperating systems. Older versions of many apps support Windows 95/98/Me, but no new releases support these systems.
PortableApps.com Launcher
The PortableApps.com Launcher is used to make applications portable by handling path redirection, environment variable changes, file and directory movement, configuration file path updates and similar changes, as configured. The PortableApps.com Launcher allows software to be made portable without the need to write custom code or make changes to the base application. While some of the software packages released on PortableApps.com currently still contain their own custom launchers, the PortableApps.com Launcher is used in all new apps released. The installers are made with Nullsoft Scriptable Install System.
PortableApps.com Platform
The PortableApps.com Platform is not required to run portable apps, but it is available to provide a more integrated experience. Features include:
