Andrew Lee's favorites (1436)

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.

OpenCloseDriveEject lets you easily explore and eject storage devices by their drive letters, presenting everything under one roof in a simple user interface. This includes CD, DVD, Blue-Ray drives, external HDD and SSD, SD cards etc.

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)

zmPortable is a portable launcher for the Zoom virtual meeting and collaboration platform. Zoom allows you to have virtual video meetings, video chat, screen sharing, and more.

Revo Uninstaller Free helps you remove any unwanted application installed on your computer. Additional clean-up tools include an auto-start manager, Windows tools manager, junk files cleaner, browsers history cleaner, office history cleaner, Windows history cleaner, unrecoverable delete tool and evidence remover.

Xelitan PDF Reader is a small and fast PDF viewer. It lets users export embedded images, extract pages to PDF, remove pages from PDF documents and convert to PNG images.

Homedale lets you search for Wi-Fi / WLAN Access Points and monitor their signal. See an overview of all available access points with their strength, encryption type [WEP/WPA/WPA2], speed, and channel. You can also monitor selected access points in a graph over the time.

Supports logging to a text file or connect/disconnect from a Wi-Fi / WLAN access point.

RisohEditor is a resource editor for Win32 development. It supports adding, editing, extracting, cloning and removing resource data in EXE/DLL/RC/RES files. This includes resources such as dialogs, menus, icons, cursors, string tables, message tables etc.

TreeSheets is a mashup of many different program types including spreadsheets, mind mappers, outliners, PIMs, text editors and small databases. It has a tabbed interface and is lightweight and fast, using few system resources even with large files.

It's like a spreadsheet, but much more suitable for complex data because it's hierarchical. It's like a mind mapper, but more organized and compact. It's like an outliner, but in more than one dimension. It's like a text editor, but with structure. It is capable of many kinds of data organization, including todo lists, calendars, project management, brainstorming, organizing ideas, planning, requirements gathering, presentation of information, etc.

Functional in 64-bit and cross platform (Linux and Mac).

PicPick is a versatile all-in-one tool for images on the desktop. Includes a powerful screen capture tool, editor, color picker and palette, pixel ruler, protractor, crosshair, whiteboard and more. Can upload images automatically to FTP, Facebook, Twitter, default e-mail program, or send to installed Microsoft Office programs (Word, Excel, or PowerPoint).

Alternatively, PicPick Portable is stealth and automatically adjusts paths.

1by1 is a lightweight and low-resource usage audio player that plays directories or whole drives, with optional playlist/favorites support. The program remembers last track and position, supports gapless playback or crossfading between tracks, audio enhancer and Winamp 2.x input plugin support. Manage your collection from within the program including folder compare, delete, rename while playing, move and more.

Supports most popular formats including MP3, OGG, MP4, CDs and more.

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.

FastCopy is a file copy and synchronization tool with a variety of available extras. It uses different strategies (multi-threading, buffering) to help ensure maximum device throughput, as well as optional verification to make sure data is transferred correctly. It does not use the system cache, so other processes do not get bogged down during the copy process and a speed setting is also available, including pause. It supports Unix-style include/exclude wildcards filters.

Alternatively, PortableApps.com packages the last open source version as FastCopy Portable.

Quick Clipboard Editor (QCE) not only helps maintain a history of text copied to the clipboard, it also allows you to make quick edits to the text directory. The built-in text editor provides a set of functions including:

• find and replace
• insert new content on each line
• trim unwanted sections of lines
• keep or delete lines or characters based on various criteria
• sort by all sort of criteria
• change case of text or portion of text
• convert text for various coding needs (HTML, XML, PHP, AHK, etc.)

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, X-Password Safe and Password Safe Portable are stealth.

CPU-Z gathers and displays information on some of the main components of the machine, including CPU, motherboard, memory, GPU and operating system.

Mp3tag views, edits and filters metadata for common audio formats. Information can be manually added, removed, imported and exported to a variety of formats. The program supports online freedb database lookups for selected files, allowing you to automatically gather proper tag information for select files or CDs. It can also rename files based on the tag information, replace characters or words from tags and filenames, import/export tag information, create playlists and more.

The program can even generate playlists from provided audio files. Supports ID3, Vorbis Comments, APE, MP4 and TAK Lossless.

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 XP/Vista versions are also available.

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.

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.

WinSCP is a feature-rich tabbed file transfer client with a variety of views including single-window, dual-pane and tree view interfaces. The program supports standard FTP as well as secure connections using WebDav, S3, SSH, SSL/TLS and legacy SCP. The program can search, perform directory synchronization between local and remote, change properties, and edit text/binary files.

Includes support for scripting, task automation, various authentication tools, proxy, SSH tunnels and IPv6.

Alternatively, WinSCP Portable is multilingual and supports PuTTY Portable. X-WinSCP, packaged in winPenPack's format, is also available.

GnuCash is accounting software that implements a double-entry bookkeeping system. It allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. Features include bank/liability/expense accounts, stock/bond/mutual fund accounts, small-business accounting (customers, vendors, jobs, invoices, accounts payable/receivable), import from QIF/OFX/HBCI formats, transaction matching, scheduled transactions etc.

GnuCash Portable is a portable version of the official program.

Celestia allows you to view the universe in 3-D including planet view, over 100,000 stars, traveling beyond our galaxy, and more.

Celestia Portable is a portable version of Celestia.

RegCool is an advanced registry editor. It provides the complete functionality of Windows' own Regedit and has many powerful features that allow you to work faster and more efficiently with registry related tasks:

• Multiple undo and redo
• Search and replace
• Compare registries
• Cut, copy and paste
• Drag and drop
• Easy and flexible Favorites management
• Editing .reg and .hive-Files in Offline Mode
• Registry Snapshot
• Backup and restore
• Defragment.

BitComet is a manager for web, FTP and BitTorrent downloads supporting simultaneous connections, file queue, selected torrent package contents, fast-resume, chatting, disk cache, speed limits, port mapping, proxy, IP filter etc.

The download includes both 32 and 64-bit versions.

Note: Many years ago, BitComet attracted a lot of critics due to its non-compliance with several standards. While still developed in China, most issues have since been resolved.

Wavosaur is a fast and easy multi-audiowave file editor created for editing audio clips, sound design, mastering, managing and recording. The program is compatible with VSTs and capable of using them in real time to listen to effects-processed audio. It can also monitor audio ports and is MIDI-controllable.

Features include ASIO support, import (MP3, aiff, raw binary, au/snd, ADPCM and so on), MP3 export, statistic/analysis tools (2D/3D spectrum, real time oscilloscope), process tools (resample, bit-depth convert 8, 16, 24, 32 bits, pitch shift, vocal removal, etc.), batch processing and more.

Foxit Reader is a fast PDF viewer that includes annotation capabilities, Javascript support, interactive form filler and built-in text converter. The interface includes text reading, two page view, rotation, autoscroll, text view, skins, measuring, text and background color replacement and supports drag-and-drop. Annotation tools include text "sticky notes" and standard text boxes, as well as form data import and export. Can insert images, bookmarks and files (including audio and video).

Includes PDF Standard 1.7 compatibility, support for the Adobe Portfolio format, Sharepoint integration, as well as command-line features and various signing tools (for both physical signatures and digital via DocuSign). Cross platform (Mac, iOS, and Android).

Version note: Foxit Reader Portable is the PortableApps.com version of the program. The standard installer version of this program from the Foxit website is bundleware, adding a hard-to-remove browser toolbar. A pro version is available with additional features.

Functional in 64-bit.

Mozilla Thunderbird is a skinnable, feature-rich email, calendar, task and instant messaging client with support for plugins and many protocols. It comes with advanced search tools, message filtering, Bayesian spam detector, built-in spell checker, mailbox compression and many more. Program features can be extended with add-ons, including a specialized version of email encryption tool GPG.

Email protocols include SMTP, POP3, IMAP (including uploads, albeit a date issue), NNTP and RSS and chat support for IRC, Twitter, XMPP, Google Talk, and Matrix. Also supports OAuth for use with accounts that require it instead of a password.

Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition is a special build licensed by Mozilla. Alternatively, X-Thunderbird is also available. For XP/Vista, version 52.9.1 is available here.

Shotcut is a non-linear video editor with wide format support, a customizable interface, and support for a variety of connections and devices. It is codec-independent so it does not rely on system codecs. It encodes/transcodes to a wide variety of formats via FFmpeg. It also supports streaming from any video file or capture source.

Shotcut is cross-platform, with clients available for Mac and Linux.

Shotcut is natively portable with some additional command line parameters, but if that is not your thing, check out Shotcut Portable.

SUMo (Software Update Monitor) finds outdated tools on your machine and enables update discovery. This helps resolve software bugs as well as avoid security risks associated with unpatched programs. Supports Microsoft programs, beta software, and classes both minor and major updates.

A pro version is available that supports program auto-updates.

SUMo Portable is a PortableApps version of the program.

Notepad++ is a tabbed source code editor and Notepad replacement with a customizable interface. Includes source code "folding", allowing users to quickly reduce and expand sections of code to see the overall document. In addition, it features multi-language syntax highlighting, auto-completion, Perl-compatible regular expression search/replace, macro recording and playback, document map etc.

A host of additional functionality is available via the plugins admin view, including tools for file analysis, programming languages, viewers, calculations, user interface and many more.

Alternatively, Notepad++ Portable and X-Notepad++ clean the local folder.

OpenMPT (Open ModPlug Tracker) lets you to create and play back music on your computer. The program supports up to 127 tracks/channels, VST plugins/instruments, and has ASIO support.

Functional on Linux via WINE.

MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a hardware emulator that enables you to play many ancient, long-lost mostly arcade games and even some newer ones.

FCEUX is a games emulator for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Famicom, Famicom Disk System (FDS), and Dendy. It supports NTSC (USA/JPN), PAL (European), and NTSC-PAL Hybrid modes.

Note that to actually play any game with FCEUX you will need ROM images in one of the supported formats, not included with the download.

Dev-C++ is an IDE for the C/C++ programming language based on the Mingw port of GCC. It features a project manager, syntax highlighting editor, class browser, code completion, integrated debugging etc. Orwell's Dev-C++ is also based on the famous Bloodshed Dev-C++ (which at present isn't being maintained by the original developer) and hosts a number of fixes including support for 64-bit processors.

TheSage is an English dictionary and thesaurus that contains over 250,000 words with 2.1 million word relationships. It also features various related word tools such as a concordancer, rhyming dictionary, phonetic, and more. Features include cross-referencing, wildcard and anagram search, multi-session history, etc.

Functional on 64-bit systems.

Note: some options are limited to PRO version subscribers.

MediaInfo displays a variety of technical and metadata/tag information from audio/video files. It features many different available layouts to display the information, as well as the ability to create custom layouts. The program can be used to find missing codecs or get more information about a given media file.

foobar2000 is an audio player with low memory footprint and native support for most popular audio formats. It includes CD ripping, format conversion, replay gain, audio normalization, equalization and more. Playlist display and keyboard shortcuts are both very customisable. Additional functionality available via a wide variety of plugins.

The program can edit song tags (album and song name, number, year etc.) based on the FreeDB Internet database and even rename the original songs based on these tags. A file format conversion tool is available, but must be enabled with external downloads. Can even fix some MP3s with corrupted file headers.

Windows 2000 users can download the last compatible version: 0.9.4.
Windows XP and Vista users, download last version from 1.5 series.

FileZilla is a fast and reliable FTP client, including secure options SFTP and TLS. The program interface includes an easy-to-use tabbed window, drag-and-drop capability, bookmarks, remote and recursive file search, remote file editing and a managable upload/download queue. Internally, it supports connection throttling, keepalive, timeout detection, IPv6, SOCKS 4/5 and HTTP 1.1 proxy etc.

Alternatively, Filezilla Portable is pre-configured as portable and automatically adjusts paths, as well as X-Filezilla.

Cross-platform with clients available for Mac and Linux. For Windows XP, an older and unsupported version is available. A portable Filezilla server is available as part of XMPP.

Q-Dir is a quad-pane file explorer that supports favorites, file/color filtering, export to XLS/CSV/TXT/HTML, screen magnifier, quick preview etc.

Alternately, Q-Dir Portable at PortableApps.com automatically switches between 32/64-bit and is approved by the publisher.

Greenfish Icon Editor Pro is a tool for creating icons, animated or static cursors and other small images. Can extract icons and cursors from executable files and icon libraries, batch convert image files to icons or other image formats and supports advanced selection handling (marquee, lasso and wand tools, saving/loading selections from files). Offers various gradient styles for filling shapes, and includes many filters such as remove matte, drop shadow, inner/outer glow and bevel etc.

The program opens and saves in ICO, CUR, ANI, PNG, XPM, BMP, JPEG, WebP and TGA formats and creates icons and cursors up to 256x256 @ 32-bit, which can also be PNG-compressed for use in Vista and above.

Include Greenfish Image Converter (for processing TIFF and SVG files), which requires .NET Framework 3.5.

A 64-bit version is available (within the folder). Alternatively, a PortableApps version is also available: Greenfish Icon Editor Pro Portable.

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.

Open Hardware Monitor tracks the temperature sensors, fan speeds, voltages, load and clock speeds of your computer.

Crow Translate is a simple and lightweight translator that allows to translate and speak text using Google, Yandex and Bing. Functions can be triggered via global shortcut keys. OCR and speech synthesis are also supported.

Note that only the 64-bit version is available.

TagScanner is a multifunction program for organizing and managing your music collection. It can edit tags of most audio formats, rename files based on the tag information, generate tag information from filenames and perform any transformations of the text from tags and filenames. Album info available via online databases like gnudb, Discogs or MusicBrainz and includes a built-in audio player.

Supports ID3v1, ID3v2, Vorbis comments, APEv2, WindowsMedia and MP4 (iTunes) tags. Includes powerful TAG editor with batch functions and special features and a playlist maker with ability to export playlists to HTML, Excel or any user-defined format.

GPU-Z is a lightweight system utility designed to provide vital information about your video card and graphics processor. It supports AMD, ATI, Intel and NVIDIA graphics devices.

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.

Ditto is a feature-rich, customizable extension to the standard copy-paste mechanism. The program saves each copied item to a dynamic list, allowing access to anything copied or cut. You can save any type of information that can be put on the standard Windows clipboard and preview in before pasting.

Additionally, the program can communicate with other computers over a network to keep clipboards in sync.

Alternatively, Ditto Portable is also available in the PortableApps format.

WinNMP (formerly WTServer and prior to that WT-NMP) is an open source free WNMP (a variation of WAMP). That is, a Windows package with Nginx, MariaDB/MongoDB and PHP-CGI (and also Redis) server stack for Windows.

Rainlendar is a skinnable, easy-to-use calendar that resides on your desktop and shows the days of the current month. You can add events and tasks with customizable icons and formats to the calendar and be reminded when they occur. Rainlendar uses the standard iCalendar format to store its events and tasks so you can easily transfer them between applications.

Cross-platform (Windows, Linux, OS X).

Note: Rainlendar Lite is the freeware version of Rainlendar Pro (Payware). The lite version is missing network shared calendars, Outlook support and other features.

Quick Any2Ico can take high quality icon or image files from a binary executable or resource file (.exe or .dll). Icons can be exported to a variety of formats with available sizing options. The program can also be used to add or remove image formats from icon files.

Command-line capabilities included (see homepage).

RedNotebook is a modern journal that includes a calendar navigation, customizable templates, export functionality and a "cloud" box containing frequently used words and tags. The program also includes spell check, formatting, insert images, files and links, automatic backup, templates, export to multiple formats. You can also format, tag and search your entries. Your data is stored in plain text files - no database needed.

Cross-platform and available in more than 30 languages. Alternatively, RedNotebook Portable is stealth, smaller, re-opens your last journal and has faster startup times. X-RedNotebook is also available.

CurrPorts displays the list of all currently opened networking ports on your local computer. For each TCP/IP and UDP port in the list, information about the process that opened the port is displayed, including the process name, full path of the process, version information of the process (product name, file description and so on), the time that the process was created and the user that created it.

In addition, CurrPorts allows you to close unwanted TCP connections, kill the process that opened the ports and save the TCP/UDP ports information to HTML file, XML file, or to tab-delimited text file. The program will automatically mark with pink suspicious ports owned by unidentified applications (applications without version information and icons).

XAMPP is an integrated server package with mail, Web, FTP, and WebDAV. Named for Apache + MariaDB + Filezilla + PHP + Perl (AMPP) plus Mercury and Tomcat, the program includes a open software packages combined to power the various services, including JSP Java, OpenSSL, and more.

Also available for OSX and Linux.

Notes:

1. To also add portable Python:
   1. Download Python's embedded (i.e. portable) version
   2. Extract it in any folder you like
   3. In XAMPP's control panel, click Config=>Apache (httpd.conf)
   4. Add AddHandler cgi-script .py into the end of the file (see this blog post for other info)
   5. Start your PY files with #!..\Python\python.exe (or wherever else you extracted the Python folder)
2. To also add portable Composer:
   1. Download Compser's Manual Installation (i.e. portable) version
   2. Extract it in any folder you like
   3. Modify the command in the link above to the relative (or absolute) path to the main PHP file, for example (assuming you'll run composer from htdocs):
      @echo ..\php\php "%~dp0composer.phar" %*>composer.bat
   4. In order to be able to download packages, edit php\php.ini and uncomment ;extension=zip (i.e. remove the ;)
3. One useful function of this program is the Wiki on a stick tool that works with XAMPP.
4. XAMPP has add-on capabilities, currently only a WordPress installation (but previously also a portable MediaWiki).

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.

SQLiteStudio is desktop application to create, edit, and browse SQLite databases. Some of its features are:

• Encryption
• Scripting with JavaScript, Python, and Tcl
• Importing/exporting for various formats
• Cross-platform—Windows, MacOS, and Linux
• Data population for testing with pre-generated data

HandBrake is a video encoder that supports a variety of formats, device profiles and filters. The program includes tools for both basic and advanced users, with multi-threaded compression, subtitles, chapters, and quality settings. The program can also process most file types, including DVD/BluRay sources without copy protection, and supports live static and video preview.

Only available for 64-bit machines. Cross-platform with clients available for Mac and Linux.

Pidgin Portable is a Pidgin version made by PortableApps.com. Pidgin is an easy-to-use multi-protocol instant messaging client with a tabbed interface, customizable sounds, themes and more. Supports a long list of networks including Jabber/XMPP, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, MicroFocus GroupWise Messenger, SILC, and more. It also includes support for many features such as file transfers, away messages, buddy icons, emoticons and typing notifications.

Plugins are also available to add more features including more networks, security, interface tweaks, and more. Themes are available via an additional download.

Pidgin is cross-platform with clients available for Mac OS and Linux; it supports 80+ world languages.

Other portable versions (note that these are oudated and may not function):

• Official Procedure to make the official client portable (fairly long)
• Script kindly contributed by rokth

Blender is a powerful, integrated 3D creation software suite with character/solids modeling, animation, rendering, rigging, shading, motion tracking and post-processing tools. It lets users create high quality 3D graphics, movies and replay real-time, interactive 3D content. Its features can be extended with a variety of plug-ins, scripts, templates and more.

Cross platform (Mac, Linux). The program has been used for a wide variety of functions, including VFX, video edition, modeling etc.

Alternatively:

• Blender Portable from PortableApps (~25% smaller and segregates user scripts)
  
• X-Blender from WinPenPack

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.

WinContig is an easy-to-use file defragmentation program that allows defrag of parts of the drive. This is useful for squeezing extra performance out of important or frequently used files or programs without wasting time and energy cleaning up the rest of the drive.

Note that this is recommended only on magnetic disks. Flash-based drives (SSDs and thumb drives) don't benefit from defragmentation and such maintenance tools can reduce the life of the drive.

The program engine is based on the standard Microsoft defragmentation API and allows you to group files into profiles, accepting a number of available command-line switches for additional control.

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.

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.