I’ve come across a couple of programs that anybody can run from a USB flash drive without needing to install them to the hard drive. I already use the regular versions of these programs on my laptop and tower but it’s nice having them on a thumbdrive for when I go to people’s houses for tech work. The best part is they’re all free.
The first one is Portable Firefox. Firefox is a free alternative to Internet Explorer that is also a lot safer to use than IE. Firefox also has tabbed browsing so that you can visit multiple sites at the same time inside one browser window. With IE, you would have to have multiple IE windows open. Portable Firefox is 5.8MB downloaded and 7.5MB installed.
The next one is Portable Thunderbird. Thunderbird is a free alternative to Microsoft Outlook that is also safer to use than Outlook. Thunderbird only handles email and contacts. It doesn’t have a calendar feature built into it which is why there’s Sunbird. Portable Thunderbird is 7.1MB downloaded and 9.0MB installed.
The next one is Portable Sunbird. Sunbird is Mozilla’s calendar program. It allows you to keep track of all your appointments just like Microsoft Outlook. Thunderbird and Sunbird together are the equivalent of Microsoft Outlook. Portable Sunbird is 6.1MB downloaded and 7.5MB installed.
The next one is Portable OpenOffice. OpenOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. Presently there are two version of OpenOffice available. The latest stable version has a word processor, spreadsheet, and a presentation package. The latest beta adds a database to that list. The only Office application that OpenOffice doesn’t have a similar version, is Outlook; but then again, you already have Thunderbird and Sunbird. Portable OpenOffice is 53.4MB downloaded and 90.6MB for the stable version; 60.5MB downloaded and 116MB installed for the beta version.
The last one is FileZilla. FileZilla is a free FTP client for uploading/downloading files to/from an FTP server. Make sure you download the .zip and not the .exe if you’re going to use it on a thumbdrive. FileZilla is 4.3MB downloaded and 11.5MB installed.