A little more about portable apps

I just got a new laptop, and, instead of installing all kinds of crap, I decided to try running as much of the software as portable applications as possible.

At this point, I’ve stuffed portable versions of: Firefox, Sylpheed,  Gaim and FileZilla onto the machine, and use them daily. They work just as well as the installed versions.

Meanwhile, for other applications I need, of course, I run them off of my USB flash drive (2 Gb RiData).

Of course, there is stuff that I’ve installed, like IrfanView 4.00, AVG, ZoneAlarm, etc. I’m not a complete portable-purist!

So far, so good. And the fringe benefit I get is faster boot and shutdown times!

A truly astounding view of a system getting infected

Daily Cup of Tech (blog) is a place I visit routinely. It’s a very informative blog. Today, DCoT posted a YouTube link to a truly astounding piece of video: you get to watch a system get overwhelmed by spyware, adware, trojans, and whatever else (including some 78 Internet Explorer popup windows) in a matter of seconds. I think the video runs for about 1 minute.

http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/05/08/dont-go-to-this-website/trackback/

Like the video says, don’t try this at home.

No information was provided as to whether any security measures were in place. Even if they were, I doubt they would have stopped ALL of the crap being loaded onto this poor sap’s machine.

Nice Demo. Thank you, DCoT!