Portable Apps

X What is Portable Application

U3 Versus PortableApps Battle Portable Application

What is Portable Application ? A portable application is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any Windows computer. When your USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug the device, none of your personal data is left behind.

Benefits Criticisms

Benefits Criticisms

PortableApps The site and project started out as a batch script to run Mozilla Firefox from a flash drive. John T. Haller then expanded the project to include Mozilla Thunderbird and OpenOffice.org. Soon the open source suite of programs outgrew Haller's personal WWW site and Haller moved it to a community site, PortableApps.com, which now serves as a location to centralize the knowledge and development efforts of portable application projects

PortableApps

Benefits

Data security Virus protection Free & Open-Source No Special Hardware

No need of admin rights Free Portable Applications

PortableApps

Criticisms

Delayed latest App. Version Application Inherently Portable Non-AutoLaunch issues

PortableApps

Benefits Data Security

Portableapps drives come with Toucan application. This utility sync, backup, and encrypts the drive to protect from data loss and data theft.

PortableApps

Benefits Virus protection

Like U3 drives, Portableapps come with virus protection software which gives protection against being infected by or spreading computer viruses and the best news it is free and lightweight.

PortableApps

Benefits Free & Open-Source

Unlike U3’s closed platform, The Portableapps open source platform is the best edge yet of Portableapps to U3. This means Manufacturers doesn’t need to spend or to pay Royalties to Portableapps to implement this program on their products.

PortableApps

Benefits

No special hardware needed

Unlike U3’s closed platform that runs only to SanDisk’s U3 drive, Selected Memorex and Imation Flashdrives. Portableapps runs on Flashdrives, Ipod,Portable Harddrives or other portable device. Whatever is the brand of the your portable storage device Portableapps will work. Just pick any portable storage device and install Portableapps Platform.

PortableApps

Benefits

No need of admin rights on other computers

New software can be downloaded to a U3 flash drive without the requirement for administrative privileges on the host computer.

PortableApps

Benefits

Free Portable Applications

Portableapps application is Godsend to Portable application user. Why, because all of current applications on Portableapps is free. Besides from being useful, decent and not just non-sense application. Their $0.00 price tag is the best buy for portable application.

PortableApps

Criticisms

Delayed latest App. Version

There had been some criticism regarding the delay between the official release of an application, and the availability of a portable version. The delay is due to adjustment of codes to run on Portableapps Platform Launch pad.

PortableApps

Criticisms

Application Inherently Portable A number of the applications included in PortableApps.com packages are inherently portable, with official versions of the software being released (for example) in ZIP format, which can simply be uncompressed and copied to a USB drive, where it would be ready for use anyway. The repackaging of these applications serves to integrate with the PortableApps menu. An example of this is XAMPP which is installed independently on the removable device and only integrated by using the XAMPP Launcher. Some applications, while inherently portable, still leave traces on the host computer when the official version is used, such as Notepad++.

PortableApps

Criticisms

Non-Autolaunch issues

The menu cannot launch automatically unless set up to do so on first install under Windows XP or Vista. Instead the user is prompted.

: y B d e t n e Pres

Kimpee M. Enriquez Nica Angelique Vito Cruz

U3 U3 is a company producing a proprietary method of auto-launching applications from specially formatted USB flash drives. Flash drives adhering to the U3 specification are termed "U3 smart drives". U3 smart drives come preinstalled with the U3 Launchpad, which looks similar to the Windows OS start menu and controls program installation. The method works with recent Microsoft Windows systems only.

U3

Benefits Portability Ease of use

Data security Virus protection No need of admin rights

U3

Criticisms Lack of encryption Two drive letters Trialware Apps.

Non-Windows issues Slow loading speeds Uninstallation issues Freezing the computer Hardware requirements

Proprietary format / closed platform Incompatibility with certain platforms

U3 Portability This software automatically attempts installation of U3 components (U3 Launchpad) on the hard disk drive and associated System Registry entries on the Host Computer. Afterwards the U3 software can be taken with all its personalized settings to any computer running a compatible version of Microsoft Windows (though no other operating system), with no need to install the software if not already there, or to use different settings and options, the initialization Host computer requires Administrative privileges and no need for administrator access privileges on subsequent computers.

U3 Ease of use

Programs are run from the Launchpad, functionally similar to the Windows Start menu familiar to most users of Windows XP.

U3 Data security

Most U3 drives on the market feature a security lock within the U3 Launchpad. This loads the CD partition first and can be user-configured to require a password to be entered; otherwise the data partition will not load. The drive is supposed to seal itself after a certain number of invalid password entries, requiring a reformat.

U3 Virus protection

Many U3 drives come with virus protection software which gives protection against being infected by or spreading computer viruses.

U3 No need of admin rights on other computers

New software can be downloaded to a U3 flash drive without the requirement for administrative privileges on the host computer.

U3 Two drive letters As a work-around to the lack of Auto-Play for Flash drives on older versions of Windows, the U3 software creates two drive letters (one which presents itself as a CD to allow Windows' autoplay to start the launcher, and another for storing user data). Although this is the only way to implement auto-start functionality on preWindows XP systems, it could be considered a kludge, and the extra drive letter created can be an annoyance. However, it is trivial to prevent Windows from allocating a drive letter for the "CD drive" via the Windows "Disk Management" tool.

U3 Lack of encryption

It has been reported that the supposed secure data is actually fully accessible with any application that can read raw sectors, the password system simply being used as a lock on a door (but you can still see through the windows). Though, as with any flash drive, this security problem can easily be resolved by using 3rd party disk encryption software such as FreeOTFE and TrueCrypt

U3 Non-Windows issues The U3 software and applications only work on Windows. The effect of the U3 flash drive on nonWindows operating systems is variable - it will appear as a read-only CD-ROM drive containing some Windows software on Mac OS and Linux. The use of non-standard CD-ROM emulation may cause errors - under Linux you will see kernel errors like "end_request: I/O error, dev sr1, sector 196600" relating to the emulated drive. The U3 Windows software takes up space on the flash disk and can't be deleted without using the Windows/Mac uninstaller mentioned above.

U3 Slow loading speeds

Many U3 users have complained about how long the USB drive takes to load the software. Some have even complained of data transfer rates being lower than normal although U3 deny that their software affects data transfer rate.

U3 Uninstallation issues

The original U3 Launchpad could not be uninstalled by an end-user. U3 responded to this criticism by making uninstall software available on their website. This was largely due to Best Buy's Geek Squad, who in early 2006 raised the issue of not being able to uninstall U3 and got them to first write an uninstaller for the Geek Squad branded drives, and later for all the U3 drives. Since November 2006, all U3 drives have included an uninstaller. However, the uninstaller doesn't work in all cases and requires installing proprietary software on the computer before being able to remove the U3 features from the flash drive

U3 Freezing the computer

There is a strong possibility of locking up or freezing a computer with certain CD/DVD burning software installed. for example Nero v7 and Roxio DirectCD

U3 Hardware requirements

U3 software only runs on U3 Hardware, unlike most portable applications

U3 Proprietary format / closed platform

The U3 platform is available to anyone who registers (for free) with U3. However because it requires registration it is classed as a "closed" platform / proprietary format. SanDisk, the rights holders for U3, ask for a 5% royalty from USB flash drive manufacturers who wish to implement the platform on their products.

U3 Incompatibility with certain platforms Some host systems – such as photo kiosks, consumer electronics, and other embedded computing devices – cannot correctly mount U3 "smart drives." The problem may arise because the emulated CD-ROM is the first drive presented to the host system. As such, the device is detected as a CD-ROM drive or not at all. Although some newer photo kiosks are U3 aware and can overcome this limitation, it still exists on many platforms. In embedded systems, where program memory is limited, it may be very costly in terms of system resources to make a device U3 aware. In such cases it is far more logical to leave this functionality

U3 Trialware Applications

Majority of U3’s application is trialware exception to Mozilla’s products like Firefox and Thunderbird. Foxit reader is also free. Yet most of it’s application is paid version like the vital and the disappointingly trialware is Avast U3 edition and McAfee U3 edition. Most of the games in the U3 Platform is paid version and very few free games.