PortableApps is a collection of special applications, of the type that can be run on a Windows PC without installation. By their very nature, these programs are called "portable" or "portable" because they can be copied to a USB stick so that they can be used from any PC without problems and without leaving a trace or "dirtying" that system.
To be more modern, to avoid even the hassle of having to carry a USB stick in your pocket and to use these programs on any PC, you can put these portable applications in a cloud storage space such as Dropbox .
You can use this same guide to install portable programs on any other cloud service like Google Drive, Onedrive or what I'm currently using, pCloud
READ FIRST: Portable Apps: favorite programs on USB stick
The nice thing about Portable Apps is that you can add all your favorite programs to the suite in this special portable version: Firefox, Chrome, LibreOffice, Lastpass, Skype, Dropbox, Opera etc. A suite of portable programs is very useful when you need to work from a public computer or even when you go to use a friend's PC, to avoid installing things on it that he may not want. The great thing is that for each program you can save the settings and customizations on the same USB stick in which they are copied or, in this case, in Dropbox.
To use Portable Apps from Dropbox (or other cloud storage), before installing it, make sure you have installed and registered the Dropbox client on your PC.
Download PortableApps from the official website and run the installer until you get to the part where to choose the installation folder.
Instead of choosing the USB stick, press the Browse button and find the Dropbox folder. If you prefer, you can create a separate sub-folder inside the main Dropbox folder.
Once the installation process is over, you can start PortableApps and wait for it to load the list of available applications.
Select the ones you want to keep in Dropbox for each emergency and go ahead with the installation.
As mentioned above, the programs are not installed on the computer but only copied to the main folder of PortableApps which in this case is located in Dropbox.
If the Dropbox folder is synchronized on other PCs, then the programs will be available on all these computers and freely usable with the saved personal settings, as if they were installed on those computers.
So, to start, choose these programs: IrfanView, Iron Portable, Instabird Chat, Maxthon, Skype, Opera, Utorrent, Pidgin, MPC-HC, SumatraPDF, LibreOffice, Spybot, Kaspersky TDSS killer, IObit Unlocker, IOBit Uninstaller, WinDirStat, UnetBootin, Peazip, Listary, Teamviewer, SIW, VLC
The program starts downloading the various programs which will then be launched from the Portable Apps icon at the bottom right near the clock.
Once the applications are installed, after the synchronization of Dropbox, you can start the suite of portable applications from any PC, by clicking the Start file located in the Dropbox folder, just like you would from a USB stick. The only condition to be able to use portable apps by saving the configurations and settings of the various programs is that Dropbox, or any other Cloud program you are using, is fully synchronized . Using PortableApps Cloud is very simple, the only requirement is an internet connection that is fast enough, at least if you intend to use many programs at the same time which will all have to be synchronized in the "cloud".
This solution is even better than those web apps of cloud programs like Spoon that I have already talked about.
READ ALSO: Portable Dropbox for USB sticks, without installation and multi-account
