USB keys are used for a variety of things – from storing multimedia files, to keeping a backup of your useful system or personal data. You can also use USB sticks to store portable applications which do not require installation and run on any computer. Although you can search and collect your own portable applications, but LiberKey makes it easier by offering you a pre-selected collection of hundreds of portable applications that you are bound to find useful.
LiberKey is a platform for freeware, free and open source portable software for Windows. It includes some unique features in the area of Portable Application Suites, like dedicated tools for portabilization, portable file associations, portable desktop shortcuts and online updates of applications. The majority of applications can run on almost any computer with Windows XP or later. Some applications will also run on all earlier versions of Microsoft Windows. You can also run some of the applications in Linux by using Wine.
You can download LiberKey from its website and install it on your USB key (though you can also install it on your hard disk). After you have downloaded and installed LiberKey on your USB key, it would prompt you to download an application suite. You are given three options – Basic Suite, Standard Suite and Ultimate Suite. At the time of writing this article, the basic suite includes 13 applications, the standard suite includes 84 applications and the ultimate suite includes 145 applications. You can also customize and choose which applications you want to download.
Afterwords, you can just insert your USB key into any Windows based computer and run LiberKey.exe from the folder you installed LiberKey in. You would see a nice LiberKey GUI that stays on the bottom-right corner of your screen. You can go through the installed portable applications category-wise or search them by typing in the search bar at the bottom.
You can add more applications at any later time if you want to. The LiberKey interface also provides automatic online updates of all the downloaded portable applications. But the most interesting feature of LiberKey is the portable file association. This feature can associate files with the portable applications temporarily, so that when you double-click on a file type – it opens in the portable application. The portable file associations are removed as soon as you close the LiberKey user interface.
Now you no longer have to miss out on your favorite applications when you are away from your desktop PC. Just use LiberKey, download all of your favorite portable applications on your USB key and take them wherever you go. You can download LiberKey from http://www.liberkey.com/.