PortableApps.com is a website offering many free, commonly used Windows applications that have been specially packaged for portability. These portable applications can be used from removable media such as USB flash drives. User data is stored in a subfolder, allowing the user to upgrade or move the software without affecting the data.To remove the software, a user can simply delete the main folder.

The site was founded by John T. Haller and includes contributions from over 100 people, including developers, designers and translators.

All Your Favorite Apps, Everywhere

PortableApps.com lets you carry all your favorite apps on a portable device or cloud drive and use them on any PC. Your browser with your bookmarks and extensions, your office suite, your photo editor, your music collection, your games, your development tools and more. Everything you need for work and play with you on every PC you use. Work, home, school, visiting family and friends, even while traveling. And everything stays on your drive, too. Now, every PC becomes your PC.

Portable App Directory™ - Built-In App Store and Updater

The PortableApps.com Platform has an app store built right in, so you can find and install the apps you want with just a few clicks. List all the available apps by category, title, newest releases or recently updated. You can find your favorite web browser, popular games, handy utilities, educational tools, image editors, chat programs and more. There are hundreds of free apps available with new apps added every week. With no download limit, you can download one app or one hundred.

History

The project started out of a portable version of Mozilla Firefox in March 2004. John T. Haller then expanded the project to include Mozilla Thunderbird and OpenOffice.org. Soon the open source group of portable programs outgrew Haller's personal website and he moved it to a community site, PortableApps.com. The site currently hosts various projects created by forum members. The site is also used for bug reporting and suggestions. Some PortableApps distributions are hosted on SourceForge.

Format

Application installers designed for use with the PortableApps.com menu follow the convention of using filenames ending in a.paf.exe extension, include HTML documentation and store data in the Data directory, allowing for simple backup of data with the PortableApps.com Backup utility. Installers intended for use with the PortableApps.com menu should be NSIS installers, generated with the PortableApps.com Installer, but can be compressed archives with self extractors, or any installer executable.

The majority of applications can run on most computers with Windows 2000 or later.Many apps will also run under Wine on Unix-like operating systems. Older versions of many apps support Windows 95/98/Me, but no new releases support these systems.

PortableApps.com Launcher

The PortableApps.com Launcher (also known as PAL) is used to make applications portable by handling path redirection, environment variable changes, file and directory movement, configuration file path updates and similar changes, as configured.The PortableApps.com Launcher allows software to be made portable without the need to write custom code or make changes to the base application. While some of the software packages released on PortableApps.com currently still contain their own custom launchers, the PortableApps.com Launcher is used in all new apps released.The installers are made with Nullsoft Scriptable Install System.