Portable Apps[1] lets you access all your go-to apps anywhere, anytime—regardless of whether you are using your own computer or not.
With more than 400 apps, 980 million downloads, and available in 55 languages, Portable Apps allows you to access your favorites via a USB flash drive, a cloud folder, or just about any portable storage device. Portable Apps is like having your computer without having your computer.
Portable Apps is released under the GPL and MIT licenses, and it is compatible with Windows XP through 10, or Linux and MacOS via Wine or CrossOver. Developed by John T. Haller, a computer science major at Binghamton University and the developer of Portable Firefox, Portable Apps launched in November 2006 and has been in development since 2004. The current version, 15.0.2, was released on May 17, 2018. Plus, Portable Apps is supported by 200 volunteers and 220,000 community members.
Portable Apps to the rescue
Portable Apps was a lifesaver for me when I agreed to teach a graphic design class for high schoolers at St. Lawrence University last year. As I explained in a previous article[2], I was not allowed to install any apps on the university’s Windows computers and needed a way to share certain ones with the students—namely GIMP[3], Inkscape[4], and Scribus[5].
With the first day of class quickly approaching, I searched for ways to share the magic of open source graphic design with my students and rediscovered Portable Apps. I had been briefly introduced to it in a computer forensics classes two years previously, where we used Portable Firefox[6], so I knew there had to be a way to do it.