donald's favorites (332)

NOTE: Recent press about CCleaner indicates it may represent a privacy concern.

CCleaner is a feature-rich system optimization and privacy tool. The program cleans unused, temporary and log files from your system, as well as traces of online activities such as Internet history and flash cookies. The program contains startup controls for Windows, major internet browsers and context menu entries. Includes a separate registry cleaner, duplicate search, system restore tool and can wipe both deleted files and drive free space for security.

A 64-bit version is available (within the folder). Monitoring functions are only available in the pro version.

Additional cleaner rules can be using an unofficial set of community-developed set. It should be noted that many of these rules are alpha and the developers will not provide support for these rules, a thread in the users forum is dedicated to supporting the add-on rules.

Alternatively, ccPortable is also available.

AutoHideDesktopIcons allows you to hide/unhide all desktop icons after a preset time.

Firefox Browser is a fast, powerful and secure web browser that supports open standards and many of the latest web technologies. The program includes smart search, bookmark management, web development tools and built-in download manager. Smart content blocking for ads and trackers is available in both standard and private browsing modes.

Versions available for Mac, Android, iOS and Linux with synchronisation of passwords and browser state across devices. Additional features and customisations are available via the add-on system, which allows for thousands of specialized functions.

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition is a special build licensed by Mozilla and includes both the 32-bit and 64-bit builds and selects the appropriate one for each PC. Beta, Developer, Extended Release, and Win 7/8/8.1 and XP/Vista versions are also available.

AlwaysMouseWheel allows you to scroll (via mouse wheel) any window under the mouse, even if that window is not in the foreground. This is especially useful when referencing multiple windows without losing focus on the primary window (e.g. taking notes).

PortableApps.com Platform is an all-in-one tool for portable software download, management and updating. An included launcher shows nested folders organized automatically by function or favorite status, as well as a cascading app view on right-click of the tray icon. The program's appearance can be customized with transparency and several color, texture, and background options.

Other tools include a find-as-you-type search functionality, available cloud installation, drive error checker, backup/restore utility, portable fonts, automatic application closing on shutdown and more. The program can also work with portable software outside of the PortableApps format (see Extract instructions).

Functional in 64-bit and WINE, includes broad language support and proxy support.

DesktopOK contains a host of beneficial Windows interface tweaks. The program can save the current icon view by resolution and make it easy to swap between views, showing all saved view formats in a list. Other tools include basic screenshots, the ability to force-close programs, color tool, volume and more:

• Interface tools include reducing clutter with a minimize-to-tray by right clicking on a window close button, mouse hiding and ability to hide desktop icons after a period of inactivity (click on the desktop to make them re-appear). You can even modify default icon spacing.
  
  
• Window management tools include scrolling any window that your mouse hovers over (not just what's in focus) and alt+drag (for moving windows without having to hold your cursor over the top bar).

SearchMyFiles is a powerful alternative to the standard Windows search. It allows you to easily find files by wildcard, last modified/created/last accessed time, file attributes, content (text or binary search) and file size. File types available for search includes Microsoft Office and PDF files. The program also be detect duplicate files via the "Search Mode" drop-down box.

Note that the program is non-indexing, meaning it searches the drive directly, which is often slower but more accurate.

GitHub user clsid' fork of Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC) is a lightweight player with broad format support. It includes keyboard shortcuts, audio/video controls, a web interface for remote control and more. The program is derived from Media Player Classic (MPC), a media player that mimics the interface of Windows Media Player 6.4, and adds support for EVR rendering, H.264 and VC-1 video hardware acceleration, bugfixes, additional languages, decoders and more.

Note: this is a fork of the original version that ceased development in 2017.

InsideClipboard displays the binary content of all formats that are currently stored in the clipboard, allowing you to save the content of specific format into a binary file. This is helpful because although something copied or cut from an application can be in many different formats, Windows' main clipboard application only displays text or bitmaps. InsideClipboard can display many more stored formats.

PrivaZer scans and cleans your computers and storage devices, including external disks, USB flash drives, iPods, SD cards or network drives. It safeguards your privacy by removing unwanted traces of internet activities, software usage, USB history, registry and files.

The program includes an available secure delete function that overwrites files to prevent recovery.

LibreOffice is a complete productivity suite including word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, database, drawing tool and more. Includes strong compatibility for 100s of file formats including Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio etc.). The program is similar to OpenOffice, a program that it was derived from, but has added many new features and improvements.

LibreOffice Portable is a special build developed in conjunction with the publisher. On systems without Java installed, some functions such as document creation wizards and the Base database application etc. can be enabled by adding jPortable, though this is optional and can be skipped if those functions are not needed. Alternatively, X-LibreOffice (64-bit version) is also available.

Other available portable versions:

• Still - more tested and stable but with fewer features/capabilities
• Legacy - for WinXP/Vista users (unsupported)

Password Safe is a database for encrypting sensitive information. Once opened with a master password, you can copy a password and paste it directly into your application. Alternatively, Password Safe supports "Auto Type" that enters the username and password into the target application by simulating keystrokes.

The database is encrypted using the Twofish encryption algorithm. A Linux version (currently in Beta) is also available from the website.

Alternatively, Password Safe Portable and the outdated X-Password Safe are stealth.

XMedia Recode is an audio/video converter for most popular formats and includes handy profiles for popular mobile/tablet devices such as iPod, iPhone, Samsung, SonyEricsson, Zune, PSP, Blackberry, LG etc. These profiles include file format, screen size and other details chosen specifically for a given player.

Support many formats.

Note: Back when FFMPEG's hall of shame for licensing issues still existed, this program was a member there due to this issue.

SepPDF is a tiny PDF file splitter with drag-and-drop support.

OneLoupe is an easy-to-use zoom/magnify program with options for zooming or via hotkey. Includes options for full screen, realtime (always visible) and more.

Note that additional settings, including the size and level of the default zoom view (2x zoom in a 600x150 pixel window) can be modified after the initial launch via the OneLoupe.ini file.

CrystalDiskMark is benchmarks disk performance, measuring sequential and random 4KB/512KB reads/writes for any storage device. The target device does not need to be formatted.

A 64-bit version is available (within the folder).

Alternatively, CrystalDiskMark Portable is also available, which auto-switches between x86 and x64.

FileTypesMan is an alternative to the 'File Types' tab in the 'Folder Options' of Windows. It displays the list of all file extensions and types registered on your computer. For each file type, the following information is displayed: Type Name, Description, MIME Type, Perceived Type, Flags, Browser Flags and more. FileTypesMan also allows you to easily edit the properties and flags of each file type, as well as it allows you to add, edit and remove actions in a file type.

NewFileTime is a small but effective tool that provides you easy access to correct or manipulate any of the timestamps for any file and folder.

This is useful for other tools that rely upon timestamps (archiving and automation programs) or removing indicators that a file was modified recently (for security).

XnView is a feature-rich, customizable media viewer that supports more than 400 formats. Includes batch image converter/renamer as well as basic transformations (rotate, filters, effects, colors, multi-page etc.). Various viewing settings include tabbed interface, fullscreen, slideshow, web page, contact sheet, image compare and filmstrip layout. Includes scanner support, screen capture, Photoshop's 8bf plugins, image search, histogram, metadata viewer, automatic crop (deletes background), watermark, flash export and more. It can also store thumbnails to a temp folder rather than each image folder accessed, which is handy for portable use.

Alternatively, XnView Portable is pre-configured and automatically supports PDF interpreter/rendering engine Ghostscript Portable.

Skype allows users to make voice and video calls over the Internet. Although calls to other Skype users are free, other types of connections (landlines, SMS text) are not. Additional features include instant messaging, file transfer and conferencing.

sPortable is a version from PortableApps.com.

Note: The program became adware after its inclusion in the database (after its purchase by Microsoft).

CrystalDiskInfo monitors disk health status and temperature, monitoring/graphing of S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic information. The program also tells you how many times the hard disk has been turned on and how many hours.

Functional with magnetic and solid state disks.

PeaZip is a feature-rich file archiver with broad support for 200+ file types. The file manager interface includes a hash tool, file wipe, file associations, file splitter, themes, estimated compression level, system benchmark, image crop/rename and much more.

Formats supported include most mainstream archive formats, including ZIP, 7Z, ACE, BZIP2, CAB, GZIP, TAR, UPX, ZIPX, as well as it's own PEA format. Can extact but not create MSI and RAR files.

Note that tools setup through the Task Scheduler are not portable.

Cross platform with clients for Mac, Linux, and BSD, as well as a 64-bit version is available. Alternatively, PeaZip Portable portablizes bookmarks and includes both 32 and 64-bit versions, automatically using the proper one on each PC.

Portable Start Menu is a program launcher that allows you to organize your programs via a simple menu system and launch them through a tray icon. If you are running from an USB memory stick, Portable Start Menu can be configured to automatically close all launched applications when it terminates.

qBittorrent is a configurable and feature-rich file sharing client modeled as an open alternative to µTorrent. The program includes a web interface, RSS, scheduler, IP Filtering (eMule and PeerGuardian compatible), IPv6 compliance, support for all extensions (DHT, Peer Exchange, crypto, Magnet/BitComet etc.), and more. Uniquely, it includes a program lock to password-protect the interface.

The program includes torrent creation and even tracker capabilities for serving content. Note that the torrent search feature (if enabled) is not portable.

Clients are also available for other platforms (Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, OS/2) and in ~25 world languages. Alternatively, a PortableApps version is also available.

Rufus, or Reliable USB Formatting Utility (with Source), is a small and fast utility that helps create bootable external drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks etc. The program is ideal for use with installation media from ISOs (Windows, Linux etc.) for working on a system without an OS, flashing device BIOS or other firmware, or you want to run a low-level system utility.

Functional on 64-bit systems.

Rufus Portable also available.

Scribus is a desktop-publishing tool similar to Adobe InDesign and Microsoft Publisher. It supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation. Includes support for a wide variety of file types via import filters, rendering of markup languages and XML file format. Other features include PDF Import, EPS import/export, Unicode text including right to left scripts such as Arabic and Hebrew. Scribus is cross-platform and open source.

Scribus Portable is PortableApps.com version of the program. Alternatively, X-Scribus is also available.

Win2K user: Version 1.3 series option (unsupported): Portable Scribus - (choose English or multilingual, extract to any folder of your choice and Launch PortableScribus.exe)

FocusWriter is a full-screen word processor that aims for a distraction-free, immersive way to write and edit. The minimalist interface puts options and tools on the edge of the screen and auto-saves progress. Upon relaunch, the program reloads your last file to make make it easy to jump back into your work.

Alternatively, FocusWriter Portable is stealth and automatically adjusts paths.

SMPlayer is a feature-rich, skinnable player that views most media without any dependency on installed codecs, as well as streaming media, Youtube and DVD video. Audio, video and subtitle settings for individual files are all remembered between sessions so you can start again exactly where and how you left off. Supports subtitle downloading, youtube support, audio and subtitles delay adjustment, equalizer, filters, playlist support and much more.

The program is a frontend for MPlayer and mpv that also works on Linux. Alternatively, SMPlayer Portable (stealth and adjusts paths) and the outdated X-SMPlayer and are also available.

TeraCopy lets you copy or move files at the maximum possible speed. It uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times, as well as asynchronous copy to speed up file transfers between two physical hard drives. When an error is encountered during copying/moving, TeraCopy will automatically retry and skip the files that cannot be transferred instead of aborting the entire operation. It also shows failed file transfers and lets you recopy only problem files.

Once the destination directory is selected, files can be dragged-and-dropped onto the window, even while a transfer is in progress. Once files are transferred, the Verify option uses a hash check to see if files are identical.

Note that a Pro version of the program is available with additional features.

WirelessKeyView recovers all wireless network keys (WEP/WPA) stored in your computer by the "Wireless Zero Configuration" service. The program lets you quickly connect other devices via a QR code generator.

You can search connections for keywords and easily save all keys to text/HTML/XML file, or copy a single key to the clipboard.

WinMerge is a tabbed, visual file differencing and merging tool. It's primary use is determining changes between two text files, but includes tools for folder, image, and 3-way comparison. It comes with a built-in editor with syntax highlighting, line numbers, word-wrap, synchronized scrolling, and handles a variety of file formats.

An unofficial plugin (xdocdiff) is available to enable comparison functions for the text of Word, Excel, PDF, LibreOffice, RTF, and other file formats.

WinMerge Portable is a portable version of WinMerge from PortableApps. Alternatively, an outdated X-WinMerge is also available.

Audacity is a multi-track sound recorder and editor with support for most audio formats and sophisticated effects such as noise removal and studio reverb. Users can record live audio, compress or convert file types, as well as cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.

Cross platform with clients available for Mac and Linux.

Alternatively, Audacity Portable and X-Audacity are also available.

Shutter is a customizable program that lets you perform a variety of actions when a user-specified event occurs. Events include timer countdown, a certain time trigger, low CPU usage, user inactivity, a low battery etc. The corresponding actions include shutdown, reboot, logoff, lock workstation, sleep, hibernate etc.

The program can play a custom sound and/or run a program of your choice, in addition to displaying a user-configurable message. A web interface is also available that permits remote execution of one of a list of actions.

Note: A pro version is available without the limitation of 5 presets, events and actions.

FreeOffice is a fast and lightweight office suite with word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation tools. The interface supports themes, a dark mode, and classic or ribbon-style toolbars. All components include a wide variety of formatting, functions, and animation.

The program will import and export to standard Microsoft formats with reasonable fidelity. A forum post about the previous 2006 version can be found here.

NOTE: The program will eventually require email registration, but a workaround is available.

Softi FreeOCR is an image-to-text program using the Tesseract Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. It supports multi-page TIFF images and import of documents via TWAIN scanners. Scanned text can be saved as ASCII text files.

Note: Images must have high detail (around 300 dpi) to recognize text reliably. Additionally, the application has been discontinued and website taken offline, so we have made it available for direct download.

VLC is a skinnable, feature-rich media player that supports a wide variety of multimedia file and streaming formats. It can play files while they download, from inside RAR files, online radio stations, convert video formats and much more.

The software can also behave as a streaming server for delivering video in unicast or multicast mode.

SumatraPDF is a lightweight, tabbed document reader for a variety of formats. Includes a wide variety of views including table of contents, rotation, facing pages, book view (2 pages side-by-side), full screen and presentation mode. Includes support for bookmarks, command-line arguments, hotkeys, and more. Additionally, SumatraPDF can function as a portable browser plugin. Supported formats include PDF, eBooks (EPUB, MOBI, FB2/FB2Z, PDB, TCR), Comic Books (CBZ/CBR/CBT/CB7Z), DJVU, CHM, XPS, TXT, images (JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, J2K, WEBP, TGA) and PostScript documents (PS/EPS, AI, PRN - requires Ghostscript).

Alternatively, Sumatra Portable adjusts recently used and most used file paths.

Artweaver is an image editor that tries to simulate natural brush tools eg. chalk, charcoal, pencils. It supports common image formats such as BMP, GIF, JPEG, PCX, TGA, TIFF, PNG and PSD, in addition to its own format (AWD). Image editing functions includes selection, gradient, crop, fill, transparency, layers, effects (sharpen, blur, emboss, mosaic etc.).

A pro version is also available with additional features.

Universal USB Installer creates a "Live", or bootable Linux distribution without installation, on an external USB drive. A long list of distributions are available organized by the major groups including Ubuntu, Redhat and SuSE, as well as specialized distros for system management, rescue, security and more.

Tor Browser enables secure, anonymous web access to help bypass various forms of censorship, region-blocking, and tracking. The program uses a modified version of the Firefox ESR browser with additional privacy and security features, including always-on access to an anonymous network and no usage history.

Components include the Vidalia Tor client and the NoScript and HTTPS Everywhere add-ons to enhance privacy. The program is the official browser bundle from the makers of Tor.

Functional in 64-bit. Cross-platform with clients available for Mac and Linux.

FastStone Image Viewer is an image browser, viewer and converter that supports resizing, renaming, cropping, color adjustments, watermarks, lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image frames, scanner support, histogram and more. It also includes a built-in slideshow with 60+ transitional effects. It supports all major graphic formats including BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO, TGA and several Camera RAWs.

The program includes metadata (EXIF) tools including the ability to pull up a map of where a given picture was taken by looking at GPS data.

USBDeview lists all USB devices plugged into your computer, both current and past. Information on devices includes name/description, type, serial number (for mass storage), the date/time that device was added, Vendor ID, Product ID etc. The program also allows you to disconnect currently connected USB devices as well as uninstall previously used USB devices.

The program will also allows you to execute a command from EXE/CMD/BAT file in every time that insert a USB device to your system, and USBDeview includes a read/write speed test for your USB flash drives.

Functional on remote computers, as long as you have an admin login to the destination machine.

DevManView is an alternative to the standard Windows Device Manager. It displays all devices and their properties in a flat table, instead of a hierarchical treeview. In addition to displaying the devices of your local computer, DevManView also lets you view the device list of another computer on your network, as long as you have administrator access rights to that computer.

DevManView can also load the devices list from external instance of Windows and disable unwanted devices. This feature can be useful if you have trouble starting Windows on a particular machine and you need to disable a problematic device.

QuickWayToFolders provides quick and easy access to a folder on your computer via a taskbar icon. The program window disappears when you click outside the window. Display modes include:

• Desktop: Act like a mini-desktop, with small icons
  
• Small Browser: very similar to Windows explorer in "details" view
  
• Menu: Display folder content in a menu
• Multiple Folders Menu: Display multiple folders content in a single menu (note that you must manually add them or nothing will appear when you click the icon)
  

ProcessKO is a small useful tool designed to quickly kill any running or hanging process / program.

HashMyFiles is a small utility that allows you to generate unique file identifiers (hashes) using a variety of popular checks. These can help determine if a file has been modified or corrupted, as well as help determine the file's reputation by submitting to the VirusTotal database for malware analysis.

Formats supported range form fast to secure with CRC32, MD5, SHA1/-256/-512/-384. The various hashing information can be saved to a report (text/HTML/XML/CSV/TSV) that includes name, path, dates, file size, version and other info.

Process Explorer is an advanced task manager. It is an indispensable tool for both beginners and power users. I use it all the time to kill tasks that refuse to be killed, or find what which processes are still holding on to a particular file or DLL so it refuses to be deleted.

Alternatively, Process Explorer Portable is also available, which is stealth.

Auslogics Registry Defrag defragments and compacts the Windows Registry in less than a minute. It scans through the registry to remove slack spaces, reducing the registry size and ultimately the amount of RAM the registry takes up, improving drive performance.

Note: Speed benefits on a SSD-based (flash media) installation will be minimal.

7-Zip is an archive manager that can view and create a wide variety of formats. The program includes folder favorites, optional two-pane view, checksum calculator, file split/combine capability and more. Individual archives can be created with high speed or high compression settings, update options (including update, add/replace, synchronize), split volumes and more. Archives can be secured with standard zip or more secure AES encryption.

Although the official archiver for the open, high-compression "7z" format, the program also supports the creation of multiple formats including ZIP, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR and WIM. It will extract a long list of other formats, among them RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, RPM, VHD, VMDK etc. Even more formats are supported through third-party plugins. Supports many world languages.

Additionally, to use alternative toolbar and file icons, 7-Zip Theme Manager is available.

7-Zip Portable is a wrapper from PortableApps.com, auto-detecting 32 or 64-bit automatically. Alternatively, X-7zip is also available.

There is also a 7-Zip standalone console version.

WordWeb is a one-click English thesaurus and dictionary that can look up words in almost any program. It works off-line, but can also look up words in web references such as the Wikipedia. It includes full dictionary and thesaurus for the various English variants including American, British, Canadian, Australian, Indian and global.

A pro version available with additional features.

Recuva helps recover files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players.

The program has a friendly "wizard"-style set up for finding documents by type (pictures, documents etc.) or an advanced mode to search manually through all deleted files.

SMF is a powerful file search and duplicate finding tool that uses hashing (MD5, CRC32 or SHA1) to determine similarity. Includes a host of filter capabilities and a result-reporting tool, with which you can sub-filter the result set according to your needs.

The program lets you search by last modified date, keyword, or file attribute; pictures of a certain filesize, dimension, or metadata info; MP3s by length, author, or bitrate; and duplicate pictures that have a certain filesize or dimension.

Everything is a powerful search tool that locates files and folders by file name instantly, and includes an FTP and Web server interface. It also can search files by their contents. Unlike Windows search, Everything initially displays all files and folders on your computer. You simply type in part of the desired file name to limit what files and folders are displayed instantly. The more you type, the more specific the list becomes.

Note that the instant-search capability only works on NTFS/ReFS-formatted drives and only uses file and folder names in a file index. The program can separately catalog non-NTFS/ReFS and network servers for searching on a schedule.

Stickies work like customizable post-it notes with available styles, fonts, colors and buttons. Notes can be resized or snapped to the edges of other notes to keep them lined up. They can also act as reminders when hidden for a period, until a specified date and time, even upon waking every day, week, or month.

Alternatively, Stickies Portable is available.

ComicsViewer is an image viewer specially tailored to viewing scanned comics. The program can modify colors, contrast, and other elements on the fly and will rotates your view of images with your screen in portrait orientation. It has an available slide show,

The program can view most common graphics formats including Jpeg2000 and allows export to JPEG, BMP, and PNG. It is also able to directly display images stored in ZIP and RAR files (even with password protection).

FilePro is a powerful disk and file management utility. The program can generate disk treemaps for local or network volumes, search and locate files in treemaps by automatic zoom-in and positioning, and includes a directory analysis tools to compare files and/or directories and find duplicates. The program can save entire or partial volume snapshots, compares snapshots against current or past disk states, and examine changes by difference in size or percentage difference.

WeatherMate gives you instant access to current weather conditions and forecasts for tens of thousands of locations worldwide. The program includes a customizable interface, radar images, severe weather alerts, a variety of maps and can even speak the weather. Temperature can be displayed in Celsius or Fahrenheit and various weather forecast formats are available.

SeaMonkey is a complete internet suite with web browser, email & newsgroup client with an included web feed reader, easy HTML editor, IRC chat and web development tools. The browser supports fine-grained controls over images, cookies and more on a per-site basis. Based on Netscape Communicator and then Mozilla Suite, this software bundle includes many technologies used in Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird and supports many of their add-ons.

SeaMonkey, Portable Edition is a version of the software from PortableApps.com and works automatically with web-based Java apps if their jPortable tool is present.

For those using Windows XP and Vista, the last supported version was 2.49.5.

AlternateStreamView lets you scan your NTFS drive and find all hidden alternate streams stored in the file system. After scanning and finding the alternate streams, you can extract these streams into the specified folder, delete unwanted streams, or save the streams list into text/html/csv/xml file.

DiskCountersView displays information about the drives on your system based on Window's system counters of each disk drive. Includes the total number of read/write operations and the total number of read/write bytes. Additionally, general drive information is also displayed like disk name, partition number, partition location, etc.

gPodder is an easy-to-use podcatcher, able to subscribe to free audio and video content ("podcasts") to open on your computer or on the go. The program can batch download all recent podcasts (often as many as 30 episodes). Features synchronization with a variety of devices including iPod, MP3 players, and mobile phone support. Works with RSS, Atom, XSPF, Vimeo, YouTube, Apple and Soundcloud feeds.

gPodder is cross platform (Mac/Linux) and gPodder Portable is a portable wrapper for the program. Includes optional integration the with my.gpodder.org Web Service. Alternatively, a non-PortableApps version is also available from the gPodder home page.

BabelMap is a character map application that allows you to browse through the entire Unicode character repertoire of over 110,000 characters, or search for a particular character by name or by code point. Characters can then be copied to the clipboard for use in any Unicode-aware application.

BabelMap Portable is a version of the software packaged in PortableApps.com format.