4 reasons you should use portable apps in Windows

- Rajat SharmaWe require a diverse range of software applications for our day to day productivity needs. These include everything from web browsers to media players. While dealing with software programs, you must have heard about the term “portable apps” quite a few times.

So what exactly are these portable apps? Read on to find out more, and also to know why you should use portable apps.

What are portable apps?Simply speaking, a portable application refers to a software program that doesn’t have to be installed in order to be used. Portable applications are generally available as zipped files, which include both the program and its additional configuration files. You can simply unzip the files, and run the included application. Also, any additional files that a portable application might create are also saved in its home folder. Almost all popular software programs (e.g. Google Chrome, VLC media player) are available in the portable format.

Why you should use portable apps?There are many advantages of using portable software applications as opposed to regular programs. Some of them are outlined below:

Portability
Portable apps can be transferred to a USB flash drive and carried anywhere. This can be helpful if you want to have your favorite programs available with you at all times.

Better privacy
Since portable apps don’t need to be installed, they don’t leave any usage traces or leftover files behind. This makes them quite suited for private usage scenarios.


Synchronization with cloud storage services

Portable apps (with all their additional configuration files) can be synchronized with cloud storage services such as Dropbox. This is really useful if you use a cloud storage service to sync your files on multiple computers, and want to have the exact same set of software applications running on all of them.

Custom application settings
When you specify any custom settings for a portable app (e.g. default download folder for a portable browser), the settings are normally saved with the application itself. So you get a consistent user experience, regardless of the computer used for accessing the portable application(s).