Comments on: U3 versus Portable Apps

By: Russell

Russell — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 02:09:08 +0000

How do you install PA within U3

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 04:33:28 +0000

Use both - Just install portableapps within U3 and get the benefits of your base pc desktop and encryption from U3 along with the more up to date applications from portableapps. That’s what I did and I can open docx Word files from the newer OpenOffice version. For syncing, I would recommend synctoy from microsoft if you’re just interested in data sync back to your base pc.

By: Kacamak

Kacamak — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:49:37 +0000

Portable apps without a doubt. You will not find the tools you need with u3, end up searching from them on the internet and getting them from unknown sites. These will come packed with virus! Forget about it… just go with portableapps and everything is clean!

By: paulo

paulo — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:30:59 +0000

By: Deathmaster8

Deathmaster8 — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:20:48 +0000

yeah .. portbleapps really rocks! And if you are some IT pro (like I am ) you can make nearly EVERYTHING work on Portableapps. And don’t tell me there is Adobe Photoshop for U3 …

By: marcel

marcel — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 02:16:56 +0000

u3 sucks thebig one!!!may work one day then not the next. maywork on one computer but not the next one, oh ya dont fourget to eject or your drive is trashed!!! i have yet to see any of the bugs, & problems of the u3 with the protable apps. portableapps rocks!!!

By: iCode

iCode — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:21:31 +0000

Zach,
I tested your statemet about the U3 apps leaving information behind in the Application Data folder but only found (2) executables in the \TEMP folder - cleanup and LaunchPadRemover. The other files and folders that are created when using U3 get deleted.

You say U3 has no real standard for their apps. Could you elaborate? The U3 versions of Firefox, Thunderbird, TeamViewer, Shutterfly, BlackBox Password Manager, etc work the same way as the ones installed on my hard drive.

Both the U3 and PortableApps platforms have their pros and cons. I’m all for hacking and tweaking (been debugging since the ’80’s) but I’m partial to the simplicity of the U3 model:

Security -
The option is available right off the top. Anonymous Coward states that using dd or a low level disk access program will lift the unencrypted U3 partition. Yeah, like your average Joe would know that? If you want to protect your partition, use TrueCrypt for U3. If you want to protect a file, use Portable Vault for U3…
Package Factory for U3 -
This is a Windows app that allows you to convert a small program to the U3 format. I converted my licensed copy of Winrar to U3 and it works fine.

U3 for Ubuntu would be cool.

By: Zach Thibeau

Zach Thibeau — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:57:33 +0000

the problem is that u3 has no real standard for their apps and they tend to leave information behind in the Application Data folder in Windows, PortableApps.com apps make sure that is never left behind and for people using truecrypt (hope you use it on your home computer because if you use it on say a library computer, you will need admin privelidges to mount the drive ;))

By: Wumi Olaiya

Wumi Olaiya — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:05:41 +0000

Thank you all for the great info. More pls………

By: paris

paris — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 14:59:39 +0000

any review on thunder p2p
adn qvod player?

please