JohnTHaller's favorites (31)

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.

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.

Google Chrome is a web browser designed for simplicity and speed. Its minimalistic appearance and capabilities can be extended with themes and extensions. The program integrates with Google's tools and services, and can sync across other signed-in devices.

Cross-platform with clients available for Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.

Google Chrome Portable is the PortableApps version of the program. It includes automatic support for jPortable to enable web-based Java apps. For users interested in the cutting edge, Beta and Development are also available. For Windows versions from XP to 8, see past versions.

Note: Starting in v125, Chrome silently stopped supporting portable versions, which noticeably stopped supporting portable printing (including saving as PDF). Starting in v126, Chrome Portable bypasses it by hardcoding the command line parameter --disable-features=PrintCompositorLPAC (see the disable-features command line).

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.

Audacious is an open source audio player. A descendant of XMMS, Audacious plays your music how you want it, without stealing away your computer’s resources from other tasks. Drag and drop folders and individual song files, search for artists and albums in your entire music library, or create and edit your own custom playlists. Listen to CD’s or stream music from the Internet. Tweak the sound with the graphical equalizer or change the dynamic range with audio effects. Enjoy the modern Qt-themed interface or change things up with Winamp Classic skins. Use the plugins included with Audacious to fetch lyrics for your music, display a VU meter, and more.

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)

PortableApps.com AppCompactor allows you to compress whole directories including applications, file libraries and zip files. The program is a powerful compression tool that unites 7-Zip and UPX inside a user-friendly wizard. For applications, this saves disk space and increases performance when running from a slow media (like flash drives). For archives, this will recompress DLL, EXE, ZIP, JAR, IRC, PYD and BIN files to their maximum compression settings, as well as an option to decompress an app's binary files that were previously compressed with UPX.

All files are tested using UPX's test feature after compressing. Files smaller than 4K are automatically skipped as compressing will not save space on the drive. The standard Microsoft Visual C runtimes are skipped to prevent antivirus false-positives. Advanced configuration can be done with apps in PortableApps.com Format.

Note: As UPX will alter the EXEs and DLLs (reversible using the Decompress option in the AppCompactor) and some apps may have issues with Zip or Jar files compressed further, users should backup software and test it after processing.

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.

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.