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Are you still using installed apps?

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Darkbee
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Are you still using installed apps?

Do you use portable apps, not just on your Flash drive/external media but on your desktop computer also?

If so, are there are installed applications that you cannot live without, or haven't found a suitable portable alternative for?

I use very few installed applications on my desktop PC these days as there is a portable alternative for just about everything I do. I also feel good about not having to rely on expensive, commercial software to fulfill my needs.

There are a few minor exceptions and I'm not really sure that I'd want to, or am able to replace them with portable alternatives.

I use AVG Anti-Virus and Lavasoft's Ad-Aware anti spyware program. I'm quite happy for these to be installed, I don't really see the need for these to be portable. I can use portable ClamWin if I really need a virus scanner on the go. (and I do have it on my portable drive).

I use Izarc for compression/decompression, I could use 7-zip portable or PeaZip portable but to be honest I prefer Izarc's interface. I find it more Winzip-like, and so more what I'm used to. Plus, since Windows Explorer shell integration is pretty much a must-have, the need to be portable isn't as important.

I also use the free version of FoxIt Reader, and again I could use SumatraPDF portable as an alternative but I like the greater options and (shell/browser) integration of FoxIt reader. (as with ClamWin, I do carry SumatraPDF on my portable drive though, just in case)

I also use the open source, Peer-To-Peer program Shareaza. I know there was a portable version floating around here somewhere but I don't think it's ever been officially released, so I just stick with the regular version.

The only other thing that I can think of that I regularly install and use is a PDF printer, PDFCreator. Although it's open source (makes use of GhostScript), by it's very nature I'm not even sure if you could (or want to) portable-ize it.

That's about it, everything else I use portable apps for, even on my desktop including but not limited to: Firefox, OpenOffice, Thunderbird, Pidgin, GIMP, Keepass, Notepad++ and others.

What say you?

spg SCOTT
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The only thing I have

The only thing I have installed on the pc that I don't want there is itunes and Internet explorer

Itunes: Necessary for my ipod...not open source, among other things (like 'authorised computers'...)

IE: Only because it is completely integrated into the OS, and is used for updates etc. Otherwise I'd remove it...

Everything else that I want can usually be found here in some portable form/alternative, which I use on my pc. That's what I love about PA.c Smile

AVs and such, need to be installed onto the pc IMHO, you need resident scanning...

There is also another similar topic: https://portableapps.com/node/20577

“There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!”Richard Feynman

Darkbee
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Those last few apps

Will Songbird eventually be able to replace iTunes? There are two reasons I've never gotten into the whole media management business:
1. Usually your media management software dictates what you can and can't upload (Your media player is usually tied to one specific computer).
2. You're typically forced to have your own music library which means duplicating media files several times over (once for each user that wants the file)
I believe you can run a shared library for iTunes, but I've never tried it. I don't mind running several copies of a portable app (one for each user) but several copies of the same MP3 seems just a tad redundant.

As for IE, I didn't really count it since I didn't install it by choice. I suppose you could argue I installed Windows by choice, ergo I installed IE by choice, by assocciation Smile Naturally, there are portable browsers that use the IE rendering engine such as GreenBrowser, but as you say, you can't really very well go and uninstall IE.

I agree with your statement about AVs although I am lead to believe that there is a solution for running ClamWin as a resident scanner. I don't know how robust it is and really have no desire to try. Smile

Bahamut
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IE is not necessary for

IE is not necessary for updates. Windows Update works just fine without IE installed on Vista (I know this from experience; check out vLite). For XP, you can use WindizUpdate to update and nLite to install a copy of XP without installing IE in the process. Both nLite and vLite are perfectly legal and you modify your own installation. There's a lot more to it than just removing IE, BTW.

As for iTunes, I'm sure there are alternatives, but I've never owned an iPod (and I never will), nor have I ever used iTunes, so I can't say for sure.

Vintage!

spg SCOTT
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As far as I knew, it was

As far as I knew, it was pretty hard to remove IE, because of it's integration into the OS...

Itunes (or any other portable replacement) wouldn't work, because of the limtation of adding music from another computer - It doesn't let you...
(Also all of the installed alternatives don't support the ipod touch...)

“There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!”Richard Feynman

Bahamut
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Once it's installed, it may

Once it's installed, it may be difficult to remove, but it's possible to modify the installation of Windows so that IE is not part of it.

As for iTunes, such limitations are why I avoid DRM like the plague.

Vintage!

spg SCOTT
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As for iTunes, such

As for iTunes, such limitations are why I avoid DRM like the plague.

Well...yes...but my ipod touch is fun...:D

“There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!”Richard Feynman

Devo
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iTunes

Why not just use Floola or YamiPod. There's a great article on Lifehacker about completely abandoning iTunes in favor of apps that will run off the iPod itself. (http://lifehacker.com/software/ipod/hack-attack-add-music-and-movies-to-...) I think there's an updated version of this article somewhere on the site, but I didn't really have time to find it.

spg SCOTT
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I have the iPod Touch The

I have the iPod Touch

The first step:
"...enable your iPod as a portable hard drive."

Not possible...

And to add to that, all of the programs in that article state somewhere on the site, that they are not iPhone/iPod Touch compatable...

I'll just keep using itunes...it's not really that bad anyway...

“There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!”Richard Feynman

Devo
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How about this one then...

I just found this one and it says it works with the iPod, iPodTouch and iPhone. (http://lifehacker.com/5375286/copytransmanager-is-a-snappy-and-light+wei...)

spg SCOTT
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Thanks...

Thanks for the suggestion, but:

a) it is just another program to install...
b) Just remembered, the app store/itunes store...I use them quite a bit, and that is only in itunes AFAIK...

itunes for me then... Wink

“There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!”Richard Feynman

Pyromaniac
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I don't have a computer

so everything I do is on a shared computer. I guess you can say that my flashdrive is my computer because I got like 27 portableapps on my USB drive (most are still in beta but work great) and only use those when I use a computer. Most of the software I use anyway isn't on the library computers.

jimmyjeremiah
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I was wondering this recently too! :)

The only things I have installed are:
Truecrypt - needs to be installed to have a Truecrypt partition
VirtualBox - I like Qemu (+ Qemu Manager) but it doesn't work sometimes
Palm Desktop - I like it for syncing my PDA
Lincity-NG - The portable version crashed and lost my city, so I installed it. I'm so addicted to this game Shock

Over the last couple years I have slowly switched to using nearly every app on this site and a few others from portablefreeware. I prefer the open source alternatives here but there are some good apps that I need from there. 8)

Toshiba is better to the environment than a lot of common electronic companies. Check out Greenpeace's Guide To Greener Electronics 8)

ristof
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It's for the sake of

It's for the sake of convenience these things exist, there are many benefits not only portability but also reliability as the majority of systems these things run on must be re-installed at almost regular intervals, in fact many realize a ghost at every switch.

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