Over the years, one of my biggest complaints about Microsoft operating systems since Windows 3.1 is that every time I install a new piece of software, I'm putting my entire system in jeopardy. Most of the times things work fine, but every so often, I install something and from that point on, the computer just starts doing something weird. It might be something minor like increasing startup times (although after a while this becomes a major problem as the system becomes slower and slower), or it might completely render the system inoperable. The truth of the matter is that every time you run a new installer for some software that looks promising, you run the risk of doing some damage to your computer - at least on a software level. You're not going to physically damage the computer but it's a problem nonetheless. How can you avoid these hassles?
Unfortunately, in a lot of cases you just can't. The majority of software out there comes with an installer, which asks you a bunch of questions and then starts littering your system with files and entries into the system registry. In my case, I'm constantly trying out new software and installing and uninstalling stuff. To give an example of what I'm talking about, a few months ago, I installed Microsoft Office 2007. Now, I've been using Microsoft Office 2003 for several years and have been very happy with it. It's stable, loads quickly, and gets the job done. After I upgraded, I wasn't happy with the load times or interface of the new Office product, so I uninstalled. But from that moment on, every time I received new mail in Outlook 2003, the computer would insist on beginning the installation for Office 2007. I receive a lot of mail, so having an installer automatically start up 10 to 15 times a day is, to say the least, a little disturbing. There was no way to fix the problem. I tried everything, although admittedly I could have searched the Internet a little harder for a solution.
So, this is why I'm encouraging people to take a look at PortableApps.com. The software on this site is a collection of free and useful software. The one thing they have in common is that there is no installer "littering" your system with things that might cause harm. So, that means you can download the applications and give them a try. The installers that you download don't really do anything except unpack a bunch of files into a folder of your choosing. If you don't like something, just delete the folder and it's as if those applications were never there. It leaves your system untouched. Some applications are modified to work without installation. For example, the Firefox browser usually comes with an installer, but on PortableApps.com there is a modified version to work just by extracting the files into a folder of your choosing. The point of the site is to offer software that will work on a USB stick that you can take with you and use on any computer. Hence the name "Portable" Apps. Which is another benefit. You can have the convenience of bringing many of your favorite applications with you on the road and use them on multiple computers without having to reinstall or reconfigure.
Some of my favorite applications are on there. They have Firefox, and Opera browsers, Mplayer and VLC Media Player, antivirus software, FTP software (Filezilla and WinSCP which I highly recommend), image editors (The Gimp), and various utilities. The applications they picked are well thought out and it offers one of the most useful software collections that I have seen. Best of all, it's all free, and won't destroy your computer. You can download the whole suite, or pick and choose the applications you want, and get them individually.
Even if you're not as worried about running installers as I am, you'll probably find some useful software at PortableApps.com.
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