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Question: What premium features would you like to see at PortableApps.com?

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John T. Haller
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Question: What premium features would you like to see at PortableApps.com?

Hi all! We've chatted before about introducing some premium features to PortableApps.com as a way of supporting and growing our efforts to build our platform, tools, and app selection. The goal would be to provide useful functionality at a reasonable cost above and beyond what we offer in our current setup, not to take the route of walling off existing features behind a paywall or switch away from an open source model. And, to a lesser extent, to provide more of an incentive to allow people to pay for the software as a business expense as many can't justify a 'donation'. So, what features would you like to see that would be worth it to you to pay a small monthly or yearly fee? Or that you think others might like.

Some ideas and suggestions we've talked about in the past include:

  • Cloud syncing of app sets
  • Secondary cloud backups of settings (in addition to your existing cloud drive)
  • Members-only forum a la reddit gold
  • 'Supporter' or similar tag and icon near your name in the forums
  • Access to higher priority support
  • Exclusive platform themes
  • Monthly or quarterly free or heavily-discounted commercial software titles
  • Voting to prioritize upcoming features
  • Commercial antivirus protection

This is still in the early stages, so any thoughts on the above and additional ideas are encouraged.

Thanks for helping!

MunemWp
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Awesome! I would love a

Awesome! I would love a monthly subscription for access to premium features knowing it helps with PortableApps development as well.

Ken Herbert
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My ideas

For me as a user I think the most useful premium feature would be cloud synced app sets. Cloud synced settings would be good too, but are we thinking a user-initiated load/save profile, or an automated sync? I think both have pros and cons based on how users may use the Platform.

Commercial antivirus would be a great thing for a lot of users and a good way to stand apart from similar products - especially if it is one of the engines that doesn't have so many false positives.

Free/discounted commercial software could also be an interesting selling point too.

I'm not sure I like the idea of priority support unless the limits of it are defined really well. We already have enough trouble responding to all users - some posts do slip past the active support community here and are unfortunately left hanging for long periods. Anything that makes that more of a potential issue for anyone without a subscription is a bad thing in my opinion.

rectitude
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Hi John,

Hi John,

In addition to cloud sync, I would also like to see integration of an ad-hoc backup solution, that for example might use github or similar whereby I can backup files independent from a commercial product.

An example might function like MAMP, whereby a personal web site can be backed up to the cloud and restored to any desktop.

Of course it must be able to clean up after itself as well but I think that while the USB business has served well, it may be time to think more about having roaming profiles across the web.

Cheers and good effort.

mgobill
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Hi,

Hi,

I'm new here (and new to the platform). Just downloaded it today and so far it seems to be great. Thank you for all the hard work.

This may not be a popular option, but I see it in many other places. Maybe a small non-intrusive ad in the PortableApps.com Menu and for those who donate a small one-time amount, they can remove the ad. I like the other ideas you suggested as well!

miguelmm
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App syncing would be really nice!

I use Portable Apps a LOT! It is a lot easier to get a preferred set of apps in several machines and/or a thumb drive. I do have a desktop, two laptops and a thumb drive I can use at work. So, if by syncing apps you mean that I can install an app in one instance, and then getting that app added automatically to the other instances, then I would certainly pay the premium for that function. In addition to that feature, it would also be nice I...
* could manage installed instances so that I can select particular apps to be included/excluded from a particular instance
* be sure to not mess with apps that are not included in the PortableApps collection (I have at least 2 commercial apps).

In an unrelated note, don't know if you have already offer something like that, but I think a tool like PortableApps would be super valuable for organizations like schools. Computer teachers might administer their apps a lot easier than regular, commercial installations. Also, they can tell students to get X or Y app for a homework and they could get the tools needed for free. (It stills amaze me how many schools asks students to get a licensed copy of MS Office).

invenio
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Great post.

Great post.

1) Although I don't use it, I can definitely see how cloud syncing would be a great feature for many people.

2) I think having a paid support tier (and perhaps a private forum space for paid accounts) would be something that could generate some revenue. If this happens, maybe even have two tiers, a low-cost option to have access to the private forum area and maybe some basic tech support. This could be something like a one time $10 fee. Then, a 2nd more expensive option that would provide expedited tech support with a yearly fee. This 2nd option may make business, schools, organization, etc... more likely to use the service as for them any downtime is a major concern.

3) Voting to prioritize features would be a really good feature. I would probably restrict it to members who have paid a fee. I think it's reasonable to prioritize wishes of those that are willing to pay for them.

Keep up the good work.

Cleoss
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Greetings from Donbass / Lugano! *hi*

> Question: What premium features would you like to see at PortableApps.com?
> as a way of supporting and growing our efforts to build our platform, tools, and app selection.
> The goal would be to provide useful functionality
> to provide more
> So, what features would you like to see that would be worth it to you to pay

> Some ideas and suggestions we've talked about in the past include:
> Cloud syncing of app sets
John, didn't you ever think your creature becomes so strong like Google's PlayMarket? Maybe, there's a bit of truth in this comparison. Have you seen what they do for their customers? They ask 'em 'bout features of apps and if users are glad with this features or not. So they try to decide which app is good, which one has definite feature and percent of its happy users. But seeing Google's failure with its G+, i gonna said that this time they aint right too, they make another mistake: they try to hide features' list, percentage of glad people for each of it, and the main -- they hide which apps are better within this feature. So people can't rapidly decide which app suit their needs best, and developers can't decide fast which features are needed globally. The information should be grabbed and should be open. Google grabbed it, but they don't make open globally, with statistics and comparison of all features, including those which are not realized yet by developers. Sorry for my French, but I suppose you see the idea. People should the per-app info and comparison of its features with another competitive apps, you can know whether feature realised or not right from millions of your users / testers, which apps have more features. You can help 'em to explore and decide what is best for them, you can save their time.

> Secondary cloud backups of settings (in addition to your existing cloud drive)
Encrypted hosting for user's docs.. Why not? It would be nice twice 'coz Chrome doesn't really works as a portable when you move to another computer, so those who want to move to another gadget would want to copy or just back up their settings. You can do a client for mobile OSes for users to sync their data quick.

> Access to higher priority support
There's one thing that people doesn't need too often is every day updates. I suppose even nobody needs it every week. As it seems to me, it's a normal practice for users to update their soft 1--4 times per year (the exception is Chrome which can strongly demand an update if you didn't have this done for less than year). It looks strange to me that you propose at your Platform settings for user the ability to update almost everyday, is it so needful? Imho this option shouldn't be switched on by default, and so you can roughly economise your traffic. Yes, there're office workers for whom this ability can be so much needful, but the rest of people can live normally with it switched off and updates trice per year or so, it's not so seldom. The rest is for premium user. Also it's strange for me why so many PAFs from all the Net aren't still used right in your Platform, are you waiting 'em to become ideal apps? You invented this .paf.exe and somebody is using it for their sake but not you. Looks a bit like MS. And why Vivaldi still aint here? They now come to Android, so this was a golden era for Google Chrome, thank them for html5 standards everywhere.

> Voting to prioritize upcoming features
Nice idea, measuring of social trends. It's important, 'cause the Platform becomes a mainstream like Youtube, Wikipedia or FB. But I believe, if people does use your soft every day, you must to build your opinion-tests strictly to the GUI line for people to see it every day and can interact. Otherwise you don't use you power and ability to know what do they want, you're just used like any other file server and don't build trends so much. But GUI of this questions should be not intrusive for your not to lose your users. But.. even Wikipedia shows its banners!

You can do this. Thx for your time!

Kyle_Katarn
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If SUMo PRO could help for a

If SUMo PRO could help for a "Premium" update / upgrade feature, please let me know, i'd be happy to help !

LadyN
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A feature that I think should already be here...

IF this is already here please educate me.
the librarys of Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos etc should be able to change their target locations.
My tablet only has a small HD for storage I would like to use the MicroSD card that is my D drive and is 256GB in size for the library locations.

Rachael

I want to be able to reassign the library locations for my tablet's MicroSD that is my D drive with more space

Gord Caswell
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Confirmed Upcoming

This is a confirmed upcoming feature, listed here: https://portableapps.com/node/28593

stuart_simon
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PortableApps Backup with List

I'd love to see a full cloud backup of all my PortableApps apps and files. My university was recently supposedly the target of a ransomware attack, and we have been cautioned to use our campus-deployed Microsoft Office features when possible rather than services offered by a competitor. This means that our files in the cloud are on OneDrive for Business, not on personal OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, or Box. Unfortunately, this adds spaces to the place where we back up our files. Of course, a lot of apps, such as LibreOffice, choke on file paths with spaces in them.

Stuart Simon
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LSU Health New Orleasn

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ANTICHRISTUS REX
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I understand that obviously

I understand that obviously you have your own interests (assuming you already have significant advertising and donation income)

Read till the end ↓↓
https://portableapps.com/node/66484#comment-251784

“All these years that I had spent in the service of mankind brought me nothing but insults and humiliation.”
― Nikola Tesla ―

“I'm such an open book, but you shall read between the lines.”
― Neo Buddha ―

SimonGeek
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John T. Haller
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Misconceptions

I think you may be under some misconceptions about how much a site like this can make. Hi, I'm John, the person who created this and still runs it. I run PortableApps.com out of my one bedroom apartment in NYC. The LLC is a NY sole proprietorship created by me originally for my web application business (I built financial, e-commerce, community, etc websites before modern CMS and shopping carts existed). I code using my 6 year old refurbished Dell desktop, though I'm in the process of upgrading to a 2 year old used HP. At the moment I'm remoting in from Florida using my used Macbook M1 ($640 from DeCluttr with a 1 year warranty, solid deal) where I'm caring for my terminally ill father. I recently got the Macbook to handle both Windows on ARM testing and Macbook building and testing as I've expanded the functionality of the platform and apps.

In addition to most of the app packaging and the platform/updater coding, I manage the site itself and database which run on Rackspace Cloud as well as the download servers on Rackspace, OVH and Digital Ocean, CDN on Digital Ocean, domains, certificates, open source hosting on github and SourceForge, and various other bits.

The donation levels you see at the higher end ($5000/$1000) have never been used. I created them a long time ago as an idea I'd hoped would catch on. There have been two $500 sponsor donations and 19 $100 sponsor donations over the last 19 years I've been working on the project as you can see on the public Sponsors page. Even though each says it's for a specific timeframe, I've never removed one. I may switch to a Patreon style list so that we have current supporters regularly listed. For context of a current day, the total amount of donations over last night and this morning was $2.

About 75% of users only use the platform and never see the site ads. Of those who visit the site, over 60% use an ad blocker as we have a more technical audience than the average site. In addition to that, ad revenue is down about 40% from last year going by last month.

If I were out to simply extract money from PortableApps.com, I could have added in bundleware about 10 years ago when that was popular. I had offers that would exceed $500,000 a year. That would have resulted in screwing over quite a lot of people, though, including elderly folks, deployed folks, etc.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

SimonGeek
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John T. Haller
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Original Post, No Changes To Existing Features or Open Source

No worries, it happens.

In the original post I state that "The goal would be to provide useful functionality at a reasonable cost above and beyond what we offer in our current setup, not to take the route of walling off existing features behind a paywall or switch away from an open source model." The example premium features that I listed are all things that would cost money to provide like cloud backups or syncing or portablizing existing commercial apps we couldn't otherwise provide; or that would provide a little "thanks-for-being-awesome" for subscribers like a badge next to their name, a premium theme in the platform, etc.

This post was made 4 years ago as a possible idea looking for community feedback. I suppose there's a chance something may come of it at some point.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Drazick
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Using GitHub Pages

John,

If we leave the forum a side, all the site could run as a GitHub Page, right?
Wouldn't that make costs much lower?

Regarding the forum, you may use solutions that are free for non profit projects?

Just ideas to make this more economically viable.

Regarding premium features, I think the best path is getting money by raising money for new applications.
For instance, many want VS Code. So you can say that if 100$ is raised within 3 months VS Code will be released.
This way you don't hurt the current users and I think you'll get more donations.

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