30 Essential Free Portable Web Design and Development Applications

February 27, 2009 - 31 CommentsWritten by
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All of these freeware applications have been in some cases, modified and trimmed down in size to allow them to fit on to a portable device like a USB drive or a portable hard drive. Rather than carrying a bulky laptop, you can carry all your applications and programs, your bookmarks, local servers, emails, passwords, graphic editors and favorite browsers with you anywhere in your pocket. What a great idea!

Portable Web Browsers

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Avant Browser.
Description : There does not seem to be a portable version of Internet Explorer, this is the closest I could find, and it is better. The layout was designed to be more flexible and ergonomic than IE. It even supports (the terribly) few IE addins and toolbars and the list of features and tools in itself are pretty impressive as well.
Download Size : 300kb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Mozilla Firefox – Portable Edition.
Description : Mozilla Firefox is a fast, full-featured web browser that is simple to use. It has … come on, we all know what it is and does, I don’t need to tell yous! Just Download it.
Download Size : 8mb.
OS : Windows, MAC OSX and Linux.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Google Chrome Portable.
Description : Google Chrome Portable is in beta version so do not expect a perfect browsing experience. Chrome Portable features all the benefits of the main browser.
Download Size : 7.4mb.
OS : XP and Vista only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Opera@USB – Portable Opera.
Description : Opera@USB is not an official release from Opera, it was created by Markus Obermair. It works just as well as the fully blown browser and makes use of all its features.
Download Size : 17.7mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Camino Browser.
Description : Portable Camino is the Camino web browser packaged as portable application so you can take your bookmarks, extensions, history and cookies with you.
Download Size : 17.7mb.
OS : MAC OSX.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Firefox Accessibility Extension.
Description : This Firefox Extension makes it easier for people with disabilities to view and navigate web content. Developers can use the extension to check their use of structural and styling markup that support functional web accessibility. Obviuosly works in conjunction with Firefox.
Download Size : 17.7mb.

Portable Text / HTML / CSS Editors

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Notepad++.
Description : Notepad++ is one of the few source code text editors that supports folding. In addition, it features multi-language syntax highlighting, auto-completion, regular expression search/replace, macro recording and playback etc.
Download Size : 4.1mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : KompoZer Portable.
Description : KompoZer Portable is a very easy to use, open source WYSIWYG HTML editor
Download Size : 6.6mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Astyle CSS Editor.
Description : Astyle CSS Editor is CSS editor that allows you to design style sheet (CSS) code from a visual interface. Another must Download.
Download Size : 1.4mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Nvu Portable.
Description : The now discontinued editor, made available for portable devices.
Download Size : 7.2mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Servers

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : HFS – HTTP File Server.
Description : HTTP File Server is an easy to use drag and drop file server for personal file sharing. It runs as a standalone executable and does not require any installation.
Download Size : 560kb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : PuTTY Portable.
Description : PuTTY is a lightweight telnet and SSH client for Windows, along with an xterm terminal emulator. It allows you to securely connect to your systems while on the go.
Download Size : 900kb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : WAMP Portable Website Server.
Description : Uniform Server is a complete Windows Apache MySQL PHP (WAMP) portable server package that allows a user to run a production or live Web Server and host Websites directly from a portable device.
Download Size : 9.8mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Instant Rails.
Description : Instant Rails is a one-stop Rails runtime solution containing Ruby, Rails, Apache, and MySQL, all pre-configured and ready to run. No installer, you simply drop it into the directory of your choice and run it. It does not modify your system environment.
Download Size : 69.7mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : XAMPP.
Description : XAMPP is an integrated server package of Apache, mySQL, PHP and Perl (the AMPP in XAMPP) that all run from a removable drive. Everything is pre-configured and ready to go just by unzipping or installing it.
Download Size : Full 33mb – Light 17mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : WOS Portable.
Description : WOS is an Apache server based on PHP and MySQL that can be taken anywhere. You've got a complete Apache webserver with PHP and MySQL.
Download Size : 11.9kb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable FTP Clients

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : WinSCP Portable Edition.
Description : WinSCP Portable Edition is the WinSCP SFTP and SCP client for Windows packaged with an OTBSoft Launcher as a portable app.
Download Size : 1.4mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : FileZilla Portable.
Description : FileZilla is one of the most popular (and, possibly the best) FTP clients, the portable version does have less features than the full version. Even with less features it is still a must Download.
Download Size : 3.2mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Portable SmartFTP.
Description : This portable FTP client is much smaller in size than all the rest of the FTP Clients, and it shows. Features are limited, but if you are short of space on your drive it could be useful.
Download Size : 640kb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : CyberDuck FTP.
Description : Portable Cyberduck is the Cyberduck FTP and SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer) browser with an easy to use interface, integration with external editors and support for many Mac OS X system technologies such as Spotlight, Bonjour, the Keychain and AppleScript.
Download Size : 9.9mb.
OS : MAC OSX only.

Portable Graphic Editors

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : GIMP Portable.
Description : GIMP is a free and complete graphic editor, a great replacement for Photoshop. Its capabilities, tools and features are endless. Certainly, a must Download.
Download Size : 16mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Portable Inkscape.
Description : Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand and CorelDraw. It uses the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.
Download Size : 20.7mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : IrfanView Portable.
Description : IrfanView is a image viewer with support for a large number of image, audio and video formats, including animated GIF, multi-page TIFF and multiple ICO files. It also supports creation of panaroma images, editing of multi-page TIFF files, as well as lossless JPEG rotation.
Download Size : 1.28mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Portable Pixia.
Description : Pixia is the English version of a popular Japanese painting and retouching application for full color graphics.
Download Size : 2.9mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Essential Portable Utilities

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : 7-Zip Portable.
Description : 7-Zip is a file archiver (compression) utility for Windows with a great array of features, it supports 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR and RAR files.
Download Size : 1.2mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : UK`s Kalender.
Description : UK`s Kalender is a straightforward calendar and ToDo list with a solid set of features and an easy to use interface. It provides weekly, monthly and yearly views, and allows you to create simple or recurring reminders with optional alarm and custom color choice.
Download Size : 1.4mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : TreePad Lite.
Description : TreePad is an intuitive and powerful personal database program, PIM and personal data search engine. It allows you to store all your notes, emails, texts, hyperlinks, etc. into a single file.
Download Size : 866kb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Thunderbird Portable.
Description : The great and free Thunderbird e-mail client is packed full of features, and you can carry it about with you anywhere. A must Download.
Download Size : 6mb.
OS : Windows, MAC OSX and Linux.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : Sumatra PDF Portable.
Description : This tool is the lightweight Sumatra PDF packaged as a portable app, so you can view PDF files on the go.
Download Size : 1.1mb.
OS : All Windows only.

Portable Web Design and Development FreewareURL & Download : OpenOffice.
Description : OpenOffice is a free office suite that supports Microsoft Office Documents, as well as Word Perfect and Lotus. The portable version has all the features you would expect from the full version, making this a must Download.
Download Size : 85mb.
OS : Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Linux.

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About the Author: (832 Articles)

Paul Andrew is the editor and founder of Speckyboy Design Magazine. You can follow Speckyboy on Twitter, on Facebook, on Digg or you can subscribe via RSS.

Comments and Reactions

  • http://www.duzodesign.com Timothy

    I’m a fan of the portable version of the text editor SciTE

  • http://greghuntoon.com Greg Huntoon

    While this seems to be a great collection, on further inspection it’s only a good collection if you’re a Windows user. There’s very little for the Mac user here. Great idea overall though.

  • admin

    Yes, I know. I tried hard looking for Portable MAC apps. Very few and far between I am afraid. SPECKBOY.

  • http://josemota.net José Mota

    GIMP and Inkscape and Openoffice are available to all three mainstream OS’s, if not *BSD as well.
    Good job there.

  • http://www.makestablemoney.com/ Make Stable Money Online

    Incredible post as usual, many thanks!

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  • http://www.blackjackstrategycard.net/ BlackJackStrategyCard

    Avant works pretty good.

  • http://www.mankot.de Manuel

    Thanks for this collection. I love Aptana as a webdeveloper IDE. Just try it out and grab a copy at http://www.aptana.com/

    It’s opensource and you can run it portable as well.

  • http://omarabid.com Omar Abid

    You missed Abyss Webserver! :p

  • http://www.blackjackdouble.net BlackJackDouble

    thanks for sharing!

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  • http://www.betterinteractive.com Fred

    XAMPP is an amazing product and has a mac version too

  • http://ownage.countzeero.eu carlos

    Excellent Links unfortunately the Astyle link leads to a dead end…

    My first visit to your blog but I´ll definitely be back.

  • http://www.samrtdesign.5s.com mokla

    v.gooooood site

  • http://blueprintds.com chicago web design

    Thank you for putting this list together and sharing it. I was looking for some of these and you had most of them all in this post.

  • http://www.yosemiteblog.com Loyd

    @greg, @admin Most mac apps are small enough to fit on a thumbdrive and can be ran from any directory without installing. Working across W, L and M it irks me that Windows isn’t able to do the same thing sometimes.

  • http://www.split5.com Patrik

    Amazing stuffs. Thanks a lot.

  • Hugo Villeneuve

    Also:
    tiddlywiki for note taking (all OS and Browsers!)
    pow (stand alone or FF plugin) as server
    portablepython
    Google apps engine
    firebug and firefox web dev plugin

  • http://tituspermadi.wordpress.com Titus

    Thanks for these information. It’s very useful.

  • http://www.sandman6665.com sandman6665

    I use wampserver for my projects and now trying to work mobile with this portable tools..Thanks!

  • http://futurebells.com Amy Helen

    Really Useful and amazing tool list..I downloaded A Style for Css editing..Thanks

  • http://www.arjentienkamp.com/weblog/ Arjen

    Portable Firefox! Because I’m not allowed to install software at the office, and they are still using the old wrinkled IE6

    • http://www.kitkin15.tk kitkin15.tk

      wow really? thats kind of dumb, IE6? i mean its free to update…so that makes no sence lol.

      • http://www.midamcorp.com STLShawn

        Actually, I know a few places that still use IE6 (even a year after this post was calling it old and wrinkled). Reasons are rather straight forward. Their intranet apps, and some internet based apps, require some of the “glitches” of IE 5 & 6 to run properly. What i see most often is old old java based IDE’s that completely fall apart without “compatibility mode” chosen, but only mostly fall apart with it chosen.

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  • http://www.kitkin15.tk kitkin15.tk

    i actiouly like that theres not many programs for macs on here. i do not support macs and i will never support them. these are some good programs, thanks i think im going to add them to my website =)

    P.S. check out my site, http://www.kitkin15.tk, i have free programs(portalbe apps also), computer help, and a new upload center for pics. please do not download anything if you have a mac, i do not know what programs will work for them, i do not own a mac and i am not planing on getting one.

  • elainehuxley

    For any related query of the portable devices you can visit the site given below.
    http://forums.techarena.in/portable-devices/
    First I used to waste a lot of time for searching the internet for the latest mobile phone and other portable devices. But now I get the maximum solution from the given link. I will suggest you to visit this site for the solution of your problem.

  • http://www.software.re.or.id Beta

    Thnak you for link download Astyle CSS Editor. I will use it.

  • http://www.squidoo.com/introducing-nlp-neuro-linguistic-programming Conception Daponte

    I wonder, if there is more general acceptance of NLP, that more individuals would be in command of their personal issues. Obesity, smoking, hopelessness, nervousness, financial problems (well uncontrolled impulse buying).culd all be tackled by a number of uncomplicated NLP principles and methods?