Nifty Tech Thing of the Day: Portable Software
Although I am, primarily, an Opera user 1, I do have a warm spot in my heart for FireFox. It keeps my parents’ computer relatively free of spyware, and it’s wonderfuly extensible. (I love the Scrapbook Plugin for example, and the famous AdBlock plugin is a godsend when those “YOU ARE A WINNER” flashing banner ads show up.)
So, FireFox is great–but what if you’re on a computer at work or in the BJU computer labs? You aren’t allowed to install your own software, even if FireFox is more secure than Internet Explorer. Gotta obey the rules, after all. On the other hand, you’re missing out on all the great features of FireFox that you’ve come to rely on.
The solution is a nifty program I discovered some months ago called Portable Firefox. It stores Firefox, your bookmarks, and all of your settings on a USB thumb drive (like Cruzer Micro, which is both tiny and cheap at Circuit City–a 256MB model is just $15 after rebates).
When you’re at the office/computer lab, you plug in the USB drive and open the program. You don’t have to install anything–just run Portable Firefox off of the USB drive.
Finding Portable Firefox led me, almost immediately, to Portable Thunderbird, which was at one point my email client of choice. (Opera has a built-in client that I prefer now.)
There’s also Portable OpenOffice, which is an open-source replacement for the Microsoft Office suite programs like Word and Excel.
At some point, I also discovered the Portable Freeware Collection. This is a listing of a number of portable programs that work without affecting the hard drive of the computer you’re using in any way. No installations required, just plug-and-play.
I get to use the software I like anywhere I go–all while following the rules.
1. And I would appreciate it if you’d click this link to find out more about Opera:
I’m at 40 clicks now. 210 more, and I get a free code that’ll get rid of the Google ads on top of my screen.
August 8th, 2005 at 9:15 am
Just to let you know, Firefox is installed on many of the lab computers now. I’m not sure about the Alumni Business Labs, but the Media Center now has it installed on all it’s computers. But, I also use Portable Firefox even if it is installed on the computer I’m currently using, because it keeps all my plugins. Also, I store it on my network drive, so I don’t have to plug in a USB key whenever I want to use it.
August 8th, 2005 at 9:50 pm
Ooh, neat. I’d forgotten about the network drives. Good idea.
August 10th, 2005 at 6:19 pm
I love forefox. It is what web browser should be. I love the addon that got rid of banner ads. The pages come up faster and show less conjested. I bet anything that Microsoft is thinking about buying it.