I would appreciate some help in making a decision about portable hardware. I've been using a regular USB flash drive with many of the applications listed on this site.
I have an opportunity to purchase a U3 drive. As informed as I usually am about these things, I'm at a loss as to how to proceed. Please bear with my ignorance and try to address the following questions:
1. Will I be able to use non-U3 applications on a U3 drive?
2. What are the real benefits of a U3?
3. Are U3 drives faster or slower than regular USB flash drives?
4. Are U3 drives the "wave of the future" and thus non-U3 applications will stop being developed?
Thanks. Feel free to answer one or two or all of the above questions.
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on BlueSky
Essentially U3 is just a launchpad that autoruns on insert. Most U3 apps are not free, when there are obvious free alternatives. I know it's not quite the same, but Avast Antivirus for U3 is $19 or something, while ClamWin Portable is free. It looks good, but when it comes down to it, do you really want it to autoplay all the time? I found on uni computers it took around 2-3mins to work out what to do with the U3 drive on insert, so I ended up just going back to using Pstart and removing the u3 launchpad.
Perhaps the drives are slightly faster than a regular non-name drive, as they are designed to run software from, but I wouldn't advise paying extra to get one.
Mine is a 1GB Sandisk Cruzer U3 Micro. Bought it for £14.99, and it's great. But I wouldn't have payed a premium to get it.
Rich
I bought a U3 drive a few months ago and after using it for about a week I uninstalled U3 for several reasons.
cons:
1) Almost all U3 apps are available as atnadard non U3 versions
2) U3 annoyingly has to install drivers and software the first time you plug it into a computer
3) The U3 launcher takes up valuable space on the flash drive
Pros:
1)there are some portable apps that only run U3 (however has mentioned before, most of them cost money)
On that note I dont believe that U3 drives are the wave of the future however portable apps are. If you download the new prtable apps suite you will get pretty much everything that you would have gotten with U3. To me, U3 just seems like an annoyance
Thanks for the opinion, guys. I was beginning to think along the same lines. The U3 drive I may get is a 1GB Cruizer Micro available at Best Buy for $19.99. Seems like a great deal that's hard to pass up.
If it's easy enough to uninstall the U3 software, then good enough. Incidently, I had purchased a Lexar Fire Fly 1GB for the same amount and its access time was a lot slower than I expected. So I returned it and decided to wait to get a different one. Hopefully the Cruizer will be significantly faster.
Thanks again for the informative feedback.
My recommendation:
Buy the SanDisk drive. When it worked it was fast and reliable.
Immediately uninstall the U3.
Download and use religiously PortableApps Backup RC1
I used that drive for almost 6 months before https://portableapps.com/node/3736
My drive is completely dead now, but I used it 8hrs a day 7 days a week. I might have cooked it.
8)
Life is about the journey not the destination!
Live today like it is your last!
Do you do the right thing even when no one will know you did?
\(^.^)/
Life is about the journey not the destination!
The Kazoo Spartan
I just bought a SanDisk Cruzer Micro U3 2GB from Office Depot for $29(After Rebates). I will be uninstalling the U3 ASAP.
Did not really want to get the same drive again, but it might have been a fluke or something. I really did not blame the drive at all, it was the U3 that gave me issues when there was a problem.
8)
Life is about the journey not the destination!
Live today like it is your last!
Do you do the right thing even when no one will know you did?
\(^.^)/
Life is about the journey not the destination!
The Kazoo Spartan
I got one myself.
I probably won't disable U3, cause it's mainly a U3 testing drive. However, I would follow wsm's advice if it is for day-to-day use.
----
Ryan McCue
Cube Games
Life is like a sewer. You only get out of it what you put into it.
(Tom Lehrer)
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
Since I re-program certain brands
of USB-controllers with factory-tools (not the sandisk)
I have some knowledge on how they work ..
To answer your questions :
1 : Certainly , even though the u3-guys don't exactly
advertise it . What you wont be able to is to "install"
them directly in the LaunchPad.
2 : They mostly haven't been implemented yet !!.
The u3 chip is a quite powerful micro controller ,it is capable of executing programs , doing 256 bit AES
encryption and MANY other things .
The auto-run is , IMO , mostly a "sales -gimmick"
and u3 are NOT the only ones that make controllers
capable of multi-device functionality .
And due to security-concerns auto-run as it functions
today WILL have to disappear in the near future .
It IS already disabled MANY places , that being one of the
main reasons people complain about u3 not working.
You also need to realise that the u3 controller is able
to write hidden cookies to user-inaccessible parts of the RAM (as in "not even a full format removes them"), has a "unique srn" and is capable of some SERIOUS "anti-piracy" aka "licensing" techniques .
All this is briefly described in the SanDisk SDK .
3. The SanDisk cruzers are quite decent when used as
regular drives and the "titaniums" are extremely solid .
The u3 LauncPad .. well , that's another story
But you COULD just REPLACE it with PStart or Liberta ....
[http://www.cse.msstate.edu/~rwm8/hackingU3/]
"theres some legal"....the corporate lawyers are shouting ? what do I care , it's HARDWARE that I OWN .
4. "Yes" & "NO WAY"
"Yes" , because of the "anti-piracy" capabilities ,
not the auto-run, u3-TYPE drives are very likely
the wave of the nearest future .
You will probably be able to buy applications
(and maybe even OS's)that today are sold with
USB dongles on "u3-type" drives in the near future .
no install , runs straight from the encrypted ,
passworded , invisibly cookied and uniquely identifiable read-only device .
THAT will be VERY hard for the crackers to do anything about .
"NO WAY" because the thing known today as "open source"
has been with us since the dawn of the computer-age , "intellectual property" and "licensing" a product to
private consumers hasn't. "Big Blue" "IP" & "M$" will disappear again LONG before "open source" will .
And , ironically maybe , the main reason for this is SECURITY .
open source software is simply more secure than proprietary for the simple reason that the availability of the source-code allows ANY qualified person to review the code.. Even Governments are starting to realize that .
In The European Union both the Union and many
member-states are actively working on switching to open-source applications for (national)security reasons
and maybe a little bit because its getting harder to
justify the BILLIONS of dollars the European tax-payers
have to give Microsoft every year just to keep the bureaucracy online . Sweden is ALREADY
doing it on the local level and has a law that makes it mandatory for official electronic documents to be made
available in non-proprietary formats .
And last : There will always be good people like John , Steve and all the others involved in "free" software around .
It's Libertà AutoStart not just Libertà.
----
Ryan McCue
Cube Games
Life is like a sewer. You only get out of it what you put into it.
(Tom Lehrer)
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
Great post, btw. One thing that U3 does that prevents me from going pure PortableApps is the password protected partition that U3 creates on insertion.
The company I work for is very concerned about IT security and by password protecting the partition, it prevents data disclosure if your portable drive is lost or stolen.
-IP
One thing some people apparently don't realize is that U3 does not encrypt your data and the U3 password can be worked around to get at your data.
You should not be keeping any important information on any type of portable device without encrypting it. Firefox and Thunderbird can encrypt your email and website passwords if you set a master password. Programs like Keepass, Password Safe, SignupShield and Roboform can be used to securely keep passwords as well. To secure your files, you should place them all in an encrypted area using something like TrueCrypt (free, open source, but requires admin rights) or get a drive that uses encryption (for example: Kingston's DataTraveler Secure).
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I agree with the gist of most posts, but . . . I can't see any reason to uninstall U3. I allow it to autoplay - which usually doesn't take too long - then I start PApps Suite and off I go. One advantage for the moment, though I believe John may be working on this, is that U3 allows a convenient EJECT button.
Also, am I wrong in saying that U3 has nothing to do with the speed of the drive - that's just a function of the design/manufacturer, isn't it?
Actually, lots of people use either the whole PortableApps Suite or individual portable apps to complement their U3 stuff. They'll all work side by side with U3 without any issues (which is by design).
And, yes, there is an eject button coming.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Good points. I use Roboform Portable to keep my passwords secure. And you are correct, only real encryption (e.g. AES) offers total security.
However, I was not aware of anyone getting around the password protected partition on U3 drives! Is this common knowledge? I did know (albeit many don't) that the data is not encrypted on the U3 partition. For most folks, I would think the partition password would be sufficient for most run-of-the-mill documents. Anything more sensitive than that would require encrypted vaults.
It's important to have Vault software NOT require Admin rights as you may not have these rights on corporate, government, library, etc. desktops. It would render your documents unusable if you plugged into these borrowed computers.
Many thanks for all your hard work!
-IP