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 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.
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10basetom
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• Review • about 7 years ago • 2 users agree • 1 reply
I've been a casual PortableApps.com user (i.e., not a "junkie") for a couple of years. After reading about LiberKey, I got curious and spent about two hours trying to use it as I would PAP. Here's my take on PAP vs. LiberKey...
What I like about LiberKey:
There's an option to auto-install important updates. In PAP you have to manually select Apps / Check for Updates. I wish there was a way in PAP to configure it to auto-update all apps even when my PC is sleeping, just like what we take for granted in iOS and Android.
The menu search functionality is superior to PAP because it also searches the app description. In PAP when I search for "outliner" I should get a match for The Guide, but I don't because PAP only matches against the app title. The minor downside is that there's a higher chance you will find false negatives in LiberKey.
App installation/update appears to be more reliable. In PAP whenever I update about a dozen apps or more in one go, it almost always crashes on me (I'm using v11.2). This, compounded by the fact that PAP has no automatic update mechanism, makes updating apps a big chore. I haven't installed that many apps in LiberKey to say whether it's more robust, but so far so good.
What I like about PortableApps.com:
The menu interface is faster. The first thing I noticed when I launched LiberKey was how sluggish it felt compared to PAP. I dunno, it reminds me of one of those Java apps from back in the day, or a ported Linux app that runs on top of GTK or something. LiberKey still felt cumbersome even after I disabled all animations.
It consumes little memory. I was shocked to see that LiberKey uses up about 3x as much RAM as PAP (15 MB vs. 5 MB). Even worse, the memory usage kept increasing the longer I used it (after about 10 minutes it was up to 19 MB already).
It appears to have a more active community than LiberKey. The latest version of LiberKey was updated two years ago, which suggests to me that development is very slow or even stalled (?). Also, I installed AIMP on both platforms and found out that the PAP version was slightly newer than the LiberKey version (build 1332 vs. 1324).
In the end, I uninstalled LiberKey and went back to PAP. For me, the #1 knock against LiberKey is its memory consumption -- 15+ MB of memory for a menu system that is mostly sitting idle is just too much, and on principle I removed LiberKey from my system.
What I don't like about both PAP and LiberKey: when you launch any portable app within their system, a second helper process is always loaded at the same time and sits there until you close the app. I understand that this is necessary to maintain the app's portability, but it's still kind of annoying. That's why I only install a PAP app if there's no other way to make it portable. For example, does TreePad Lite really need to be part of the PAP platform? I've been using a portable version of it for years, so have no need to install it through PAP. The same applies to The Guide; a recent update added an option to make it truly portable, so I enabled this option and uninstalled the copy in PAP.
One of the main benefits of installing all portable apps through PAP used to be so that you can quickly search for an app to launch it, but ever since Windows 7 you can pretty much do the same thing using the standard Start menu (you just need to add a shortcut). The other main benefit of using a portable app suite is to keep all the portable apps updated. However, the app update mechanism in PAP isn't very robust (and there's still no auto-update), so this benefit is larger than it seems. If you are against portable app suites, then you may consider downloading all your portable apps through FileHippo.com and using their Update Checker utility (http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker).
gordcaswell
RE: LiberKey Likes:
There is now an option to auto-update when loading. This brings up the list of applications requiring updates, the same as if you manually check for updates.
The search function now searches in descriptions, as well as in the application name.
The crashing bug has since been fixed.
Reply written over 3 years ago
Show entire comment and 1 reply ▾
Jupiter2
Comment • over 4 years ago • 1 users agree • 0 replies
portableapps.com is listed with the Linux tag. This should be removed. The site states that Wine is required to run their collection under Linux. They also suggest Wine and other emulated solutions to get these native Windows apps to run under macOS. You might as well boot into Windows on a Virtual Machine and run these apps or remove Linux entirely and replace with Windows.
I was a big fan of this site and especially portablefreeware.com (which I miss dearly) when I was a Windows user but these are not native Linux apps. On a positive note, Linux should soon see real (native), stable, portable solutions becoming more mainstream in the form of Ubuntu Snap Packages, Flatpak and others.
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andreadurante60
Comment • almost 4 years ago • 0 replies
It has all the necessary apps and updated regularly !
I'm often hesitant to download portable apps from portableapps.com because they're so bloated with stuff from portableapps.com. Is there a way to download clean portables from portableapps.com?
PortableApps.com was added to AlternativeTo by nefycee on Nov 27, 2009 and this page was last updated Dec 1, 2020. PortableApps.com is sometimes referred to as PortableApps, PortableApps.com Launcher, PAL.
I've been a casual PortableApps.com user (i.e., not a "junkie") for a couple of years. After reading about LiberKey, I got curious and spent about two hours trying to use it as I would PAP. Here's my take on PAP vs. LiberKey...
What I like about LiberKey:
There's an option to auto-install important updates. In PAP you have to manually select Apps / Check for Updates. I wish there was a way in PAP to configure it to auto-update all apps even when my PC is sleeping, just like what we take for granted in iOS and Android.
The menu search functionality is superior to PAP because it also searches the app description. In PAP when I search for "outliner" I should get a match for The Guide, but I don't because PAP only matches against the app title. The minor downside is that there's a higher chance you will find false negatives in LiberKey.
App installation/update appears to be more reliable. In PAP whenever I update about a dozen apps or more in one go, it almost always crashes on me (I'm using v11.2). This, compounded by the fact that PAP has no automatic update mechanism, makes updating apps a big chore. I haven't installed that many apps in LiberKey to say whether it's more robust, but so far so good.
What I like about PortableApps.com:
The menu interface is faster. The first thing I noticed when I launched LiberKey was how sluggish it felt compared to PAP. I dunno, it reminds me of one of those Java apps from back in the day, or a ported Linux app that runs on top of GTK or something. LiberKey still felt cumbersome even after I disabled all animations.
It consumes little memory. I was shocked to see that LiberKey uses up about 3x as much RAM as PAP (15 MB vs. 5 MB). Even worse, the memory usage kept increasing the longer I used it (after about 10 minutes it was up to 19 MB already).
It appears to have a more active community than LiberKey. The latest version of LiberKey was updated two years ago, which suggests to me that development is very slow or even stalled (?). Also, I installed AIMP on both platforms and found out that the PAP version was slightly newer than the LiberKey version (build 1332 vs. 1324).
In the end, I uninstalled LiberKey and went back to PAP. For me, the #1 knock against LiberKey is its memory consumption -- 15+ MB of memory for a menu system that is mostly sitting idle is just too much, and on principle I removed LiberKey from my system.
What I don't like about both PAP and LiberKey: when you launch any portable app within their system, a second helper process is always loaded at the same time and sits there until you close the app. I understand that this is necessary to maintain the app's portability, but it's still kind of annoying. That's why I only install a PAP app if there's no other way to make it portable. For example, does TreePad Lite really need to be part of the PAP platform? I've been using a portable version of it for years, so have no need to install it through PAP. The same applies to The Guide; a recent update added an option to make it truly portable, so I enabled this option and uninstalled the copy in PAP.
One of the main benefits of installing all portable apps through PAP used to be so that you can quickly search for an app to launch it, but ever since Windows 7 you can pretty much do the same thing using the standard Start menu (you just need to add a shortcut). The other main benefit of using a portable app suite is to keep all the portable apps updated. However, the app update mechanism in PAP isn't very robust (and there's still no auto-update), so this benefit is larger than it seems. If you are against portable app suites, then you may consider downloading all your portable apps through FileHippo.com and using their Update Checker utility (http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker).
RE: LiberKey Likes:
Reply written over 3 years ago
portableapps.com is listed with the Linux tag. This should be removed. The site states that Wine is required to run their collection under Linux. They also suggest Wine and other emulated solutions to get these native Windows apps to run under macOS. You might as well boot into Windows on a Virtual Machine and run these apps or remove Linux entirely and replace with Windows.
I was a big fan of this site and especially portablefreeware.com (which I miss dearly) when I was a Windows user but these are not native Linux apps. On a positive note, Linux should soon see real (native), stable, portable solutions becoming more mainstream in the form of Ubuntu Snap Packages, Flatpak and others.
It has all the necessary apps and updated regularly !
Nice blog post thanks for sharing it.
software
I'm often hesitant to download portable apps from portableapps.com because they're so bloated with stuff from portableapps.com. Is there a way to download clean portables from portableapps.com?