Hi, I heard that using portable software when available is better than the installer version, because they're lightweight, and don't add unnecessary files and registry keys. What's your opinion, installer or portable?
I agree with @Ghot and prefer portables over installed. They just make things easier, IMO.
I'm pleased that a growing trend is for some portables to have an internal option (usually under Settings or Options) to choose whether to add a context menu... sordum.org's Defender Exclusion Tool, for example:
This gives the convenience of both methods.
Hope this helps...
Yes i always try to use portable versions of applications too. Portable application are self contained so they come with everything that they need to run.
Pro to portable apps
- When you extract a portable program and run it, it will do so without requiring any dependency because everything it needs to function is contained with the application.
- it also means you are free to relocate the application where ever you want without breaking its functionality
- it also means that its easier to clean up because you can just delete it. There is less things to clean up afterwards. Generally less cached data stored files and reg entries
Con to portable apps
- Nothing really
Pros to installed app
- More seamless to the user
cons to installed app
- Leaves behind many traces of files in various places like app data or user folder, reg keys for settings etc.
- Just more to clean up afterwards in general
Not always the case for each and they do intertwine with each other like you can still have reg keys from a portable app but majority of the time these areas apply.
You can put them wherever you want because of them being portable. Theprogram filesfolder is not inherently anything special other than being a somewhat protected folder its main purpose is to be a default place to store files.
Yes its ok to put portable apps there i do so but i also use other folders as well.
my methodology for portable apps depends on what the app is so if its something that i am going to use a lot i put itprogram files. If it is just tools or utilities that are more on demand but not things i use regularly then its going to go on the usb for all the other portable apps.
Something like a web browser that i use often is going to go into program files so its tidy, but there is nothing stopping me where i can put something like that because its portable.
C:\ should be minimized imo, if you have other drives then apps get installed or placed there instead. There is three main reason to do so.
- minimizing space used
- minimizing I/O saturation to that drive
- minimizing reads and writes
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