Portable Suite Runs Apps From Flash Drives, iPodsPortable Suite Runs Apps From Flash Drives, iPods

PortableApps.com has unveiled its first suite of applications designed to run from portable storage devices such as flash drives or iPod music players.

PortableApps Suite 1.0, which comes in three sizes, bundles more than 20 free applications with a menu system for launching the programs and organizing document files. Among the applications are portable versions of Mozilla's Firefox 2.0 browser and Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 e-mail client, OpenOffice.org's OpenOffice 2.0.4 productivity suite, ClamWin's antivirus software, and Gaim's instant messaging client.

The portable suite runs on Windows PCs—from Windows 98 through Vista—as well as on Wine-equipped Linux systems. The programs run from the portable device without installing to the host computer; no personal data is left behind when the user is done.

Three configurations of the suite are available: a 260-Mbyte Standard version, a 105-Mbyte Lite, and a 1-Mbyte Base. (All sizes are the requirements for installation on the portable device.) Standard includes the entire suite, while Lite replaces OpenOffice with the much smaller AbiWord Portable word processor. Base provides the menu program, then lets users pick and choose which applications to download.

The suite can be downloaded free of charge from the PortableApps.com Web site.