Try other browsers without installing them

By | May 7, 2011
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If you’re an Internet Explorer user and you’re happy with it, that’s great. But it’s always good to experiment with new things. Why? Because you learn when you experiment. It may well be if you experiment with other browsers you might come running back to Internet Explorer and be glad you’re “home”. Or it just might be that you will find that other browsers have features you’ll really like – maybe even better than your trusty Internet Explorer.

We’re going to show you a way you can test and play with other browsers without installing them on your hard drive. So you’ll never have to worry about uninstalling them if you find you don’t really like them. Firefox, Chrome, Opera and other browsers offer what are called “portable versions”. What this means is: they are made to be installed to a flash drive – and make no changes to your computer, your registry, other programs or browsers you have installed, or your start menu. They’re portable – completely portable. They’re available wherever you take your flash drive – from any Windows computer. And they don’t save data or leave tracks on the computer you use them on.

If you’re looking to try other browsers without changing your computer configuration or making any changes whatsoever to your computer – and you have a 2GB (or larger) USB flash drive handy, you’ll love this tip.

You can download a portable version of Mozilla Firefox from this link:
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

You can download a portable version of Google Chrome from:
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/google_chrome_portable

You can download the portable version of Opera from:
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/opera_portable

If you want to try other browsers including SeaMonkey, Maxthon and Iron you can find them here: http://portableapps.com/apps/internet

After you’ve downloaded your choice of browser, plug in a USB flash drive. Run the installer and make sure you install the browser to the flash drive. After you’ve installed the browser to the flash drive, you can delete the installer you downloaded.

To run the browser, open your flash drive from My Computer or Computer, locate the browser’s folder, and click on it’s exe file. The browser will open and you can browse the Web as you normally would.

And don’t forget, with one or more browsers installed to your flash drive you can take your flash drive with you and use the portable browser(s) you’ve installed from any Windows computer without leaving a trail of cookies and temporary Internet files behind. Pretty good idea!

3 thoughts on “Try other browsers without installing them

  1. Muriel

    This is fantastic. Thanks for letting us know about this.

    Does Microsoft make a portable version of IE9? I use my desktop with XP most of the time so can’t try IE9 on that. Some have mentioned that it’s really simpler or more user friendly than IE8, so I’d like to try it from a flashdrive on my new Win7 laptop before switching over to Chrome.

    The part about taking a portable browser with you and not
    leaving any trailing cookies or temporary files behind is
    very appealing. It also gives you the means of using a browser you’re familiar with, without disturbing anything, if you have to use someone else’s computer with a browser installed that you’ve never seen or used before.

    Reply

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