I was being tempted to buy a shiny USB3 device on this site and then I remembered that I had promised myself not to use devices that didn't allow me to write-protect the contents if I had to use them in someone else's PC...
I did a search (I tried "Write lock") but most discussion dated back to 2007 and were quite short anyway. Two questions:
1. Does anyone know of an "ordinary" USB drive that has the write protect feature that I have with an SD card in a USB "convertor"
2. I realise that many (or most?) App's will fail or be severely limited if they have no R/W access to storage but with the ability to create a "RAM disk" - or using "cloud storage" would those be options that could be built into the platform?
I only use half a dozen App's at the moment but would like to have more options and tools with me when "out and about".
Many TiA for any replies...
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I havent seen anything with a write protect switch apart from SD cards since those usb drives disappeared. Most newer apps (that use the standardised launcher) can only be started from a writable folder. I doubt that there will be any development in that direction as it seems to only be a niche and not a requirement for many.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
A RAMdrive requires a driver be installed on the host machine, few public machines support drivers being added to them. Same for schools and business machines. As such it would have very limited use for PA.
A bootable OS on a USB flash drive could have a RAMdrive driver installed but then you would need machines that permit the BIOS to be altered to allow booting the USB drive. Again not many places support that.
Most malware now days doesn't attack or destroy files on USB drives, instead they read/copy all the files on the drive looking for personal information; passwords, email addresses, account numbers, etc. Write protecting the drive doesn't stop this type of invasion.
Ed
Not sure what terms you need to find this in the forum search, but see John's response here:
https://portableapps.com/news/2013-05-09--portableapps.com-carbide-most-...
As far as I am aware, that is the latest statement on write-protection (the topic comes up every few months in these forums).
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