I always prefer portable versions of a program because they leave no traces behind (whereas their non-portable counterparts not only leave trace, but slow down the system over time due to the cluttering of excessive and redundant registries). Because many developers of the original non-portable programs do not create portable versions, we have portable versions created by other developers and I have some questions regarding this:
1. How different is the functionality of the portable version created by developers not involved in the non-portable and original version? If the non-portable version has no bugs whatsoever, will the original version also have no bugs at all? Basically, does the process of making a program portable ever affect the functionality of a program? Is it possible that I see bugs on the portable version that is not found in the original version?
2. Are portable programs in general slower than their non-portable counterparts if they were to run on a hard drive? For programs like CCleaner, this not be a problem, but a Java IDE like Netbeans it may be inconvenient if it is indeed slower. I prefer to use portable versions on hard drive just because it doesn't require permanent registries--if I don't want to use a program anymore, I can just delete it without it leaving junk on my system.
3. Are portable programs updated as regularly and on time as their non-portable counterparts? (Specifically Netbeans, as it is probably the least popular of the programs that I use.)
Thanks!
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Just to clarify, I'm only going to talk about apps officially released right here, any portable applications from elsewhere and/or in any other format may not be covered by what I say here:
1) Depends on the program. The majority of our apps are no different running the portable version as opposed to the installed version, but there is the occasional app where we have to sacrifice a little functionality for portability, and even rarer (but it has happened) there are some apps where we have been able to work around bugs in the base application. There is of course the possibility of bugs being created in the process of putting an app into PortableApps format, because there is always the factor of human error to consider. These bugs are generally just in the portability, but rarely something strange will show up in the base app due to the portable packaging.
2) Once again it depends on the app. Most will be unaffected speed-wise (there may be a minor lag on startup depending on your antivirus as it has another executable to check). Rare applications may show a slight speed difference due to things we do to improve performance from a USB drive, such as disabling a browser's cache because the continual read/writes on a USB drive would slow things down and wear out the drive quicker.
3) Depends on its status here. Official apps are always updated when the base app is updated (barring things like licence changes, major bugs in the base app etc.), but anything in beta like Netbeans is up to the developer who posted it as to whether and when they update the app.
Thank you. I came across this: http://wiki.netbeans.org/FaqPortableWorkingEnvironments, directly from the Netbeans page, where they give steps to make Netbeans portable. I don't think I'm tech-savvy enough to follow it, but why is there a portable Netbeans in beta from portableapps.com when the instructions to make it portable come directly from Netbean developers?
Sometimes portable applications, or processes to make an existing app portable, aren't quite portable (at least not to our standard).
Sometimes files/folders/registry entries will be left behind when you move PCs, or it can't properly pick up where its settings are if the USB drive ends up with a different drive letter. These are issues you won't see if you run them from a local hard drive, but they are still there.
The PortableApps Format that we package apps into handles those things.
It also provides a few other benefits in tandem with the PortableApps Platform, such as automatic updates (for official apps), batch backups, and a few other things too.
Thank you for the fast and informative replies.
Glad to help.