PortableApps.com is a website that distributes free applications for
Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
that have been packaged for portability. These
portable application
A portable application (portable app), sometimes also called standalone software, is a computer program designed to operate without changing other files or requiring other software to be installed. In this way, it can be easily added to, run, ...
s are intended to be used from removable storage devices such as
USB flash drives
A flash drive (also thumb drive, memory stick, and pen drive/pendrive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. A typical USB drive is removable, rewritable, and smaller than an optical disc, and ...
.
The site was founded by John T. Haller and includes contributions from over 100 people, including developers, designers, and translators.
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History
PortableApps.com started out as a Haller's personal website hosting a portable version of Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curren ...
in March 2004. He then expanded the project to include Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free and open-source email client that also functions as a personal information manager with a Digital calendar, calendar and contactbook, as well as an RSS feed reader, chat client (IRC/XMPP/Matrix (protocol), Matrix), ...
and OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed) and Collabora Online, with Apache OpenOffice being considered mostly d ...
. The open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
group of portable programs outgrew his personal website and he moved it to a community site, PortableApps.com. The site currently hosts various projects created by forum members, and is also used for bug reporting and suggestions.SourceForge
SourceForge is a web service founded by Geoffrey B. Jeffery, Tim Perdue, and Drew Streib in November 1999. SourceForge provides a centralized software discovery platform, including an online platform for managing and hosting open-source soft ...
.
Format
Application installers designed for use with the PortableApps.com menu follow the convention of using filenames ending in a extension, include HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
documentation, and store data in the Data directory. Installers intended for use with the PortableApps.com menu can be either NSIS installers that are generated with the PortableApps.com Installer, compressed archives with self extractors, or a custom Windows executable.
The majority of applications can run on most computers with or later.Wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...
on Unix-like
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X, *nix or *NIX) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Uni ...
operating systems. Older versions of many apps support Windows 95/98/Me, but no new releases support these systems.
PortableApps.com Launcher
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.Nullsoft Scriptable Install System
Nullsoft, Inc. was an American software house founded in Sedona, Arizona in 1997 by programmer Justin Frankel. Its products included the Winamp media player and the SHOUTcast MP3 streaming media server.
History
In 1997, Justin Frankel, ...
.
See also
* Comparison of application launchers
An application launcher is a computer program that helps a user to locate and start other computer programs. An application launcher provides shortcuts to computer programs, and stores the shortcuts in one place so they are easier to find.
In th ...
* List of portable software
* Portable application
A portable application (portable app), sometimes also called standalone software, is a computer program designed to operate without changing other files or requiring other software to be installed. In this way, it can be easily added to, run, ...
* Portable application creators
References
External links
* {{Official website
Computing websites
Free software distributions
Portable software
Application launchers
Portable software suites