Portable Apps

I never bother with public computers anymore. I take either my full laptop for work (travel) or my netbook when I travel for leisure. All my own apps, all my own security. Period!

Same. I bring my own. Securitywise better, more comfy, all the software I need. As above.
And I can tell you I do not miss the internet cafes at all.
++++

I have a memory stick/USB drive with Portable Firefox. Stick it in and have all the websites I want.

misterbee: I am curious as to how often you found the need to use the USB -- along the lines of 'whew, glad I had my USB, this public computer's got nothing on it"? Or do you make it a point to always use your own portable apps -- or mainly just portable Firefox?

Yeah, asking multiple questions, but I'm just interested to see how different travelers approach their computer needs...

Ben,

There are several websites I look at daily, some have passwords.

When I'm on the road without my laptop, I can go into an internet cafe, plug in the USB drive, open a browser and then in one action, open all the websites I want in separate tabs. It's not a "Whew" situation, but it saves a lot of time because I don't have to google for each individual website and enter passwords.

I don't use any other portable apps simply because I don't need them, and every internet cafe I've been in has the most popular software/programs already installed.

Also its a security/virus precaution, not a gee wish they had that app installed issue.
especially given that there are virus checkers available on portable apps as well.
Given a USB stick is so small, its almost worth carrying one as a backup if my netbook/ipad fail me.

As several other posters have said, it comes down to convenience and a greater security level, although the "remember password" feature is only safe if you use a master password on Firefox. Otherwise, a miscreant only needs to copy two files to the computer from your USB stick and they can access all passwords you have stored. Anyway, a USB stick weighs 10g and a light netbook around 1500g. Guess which one your shoulders want?

If you want to take a multi-functional set of portable applications to put on your USB stick, I recommend my, ahem, own cafeKlysm application. It's free and helps with security in cybercafes as well as viewing and editing your photos. It's a single download and includes an illustrated help file I wrote.

Not unusual to find that in public internet places that the computers have some sort of bad stuff, either a virus to hitch-hike onto your USB drive or malware for using the stuff installed on the machine. One friend pulled the SD card out of his camera to check out a few months of pix only to have it pick up a virus and destroy all his pix.
I won't go into details on these things, plenty of info on the net if you search.
The most obvious one I found was when I tried to use firefox on a computer in a hotel lobby it was blocked, and up popped a little window saying
"Use Internet Explorer, stupid!"

If I can't get a wifi connection I'll go to an internet place with my laptop and use their cable, though some places don't allow this.
Some places don't allow USB pen drives either, thinking maybe your drive is infected.

{quote:title=bendejo wrote:}{quote}
Not unusual to find that in public internet places that the computers have some sort of bad stuff, either a virus to hitch-hike onto your USB drive

It's quite simple to protect your USB drive by writing a dummy autorun.inf file on it. The autorun.inf file, if present, tells the computer to perform an action when the drive is mounted by the host computer. In the case of virus attacks the action is to run a small file that contains the payload. By putting in a file that does nothing, then giving it a system attribute, you stop any modification and any action upon plugging in the drive. You probably need to be conversant with DOS commands, but it's quite fast to perform this on a drive, really!

1) create a new text file on your USB drive, then change its name from new.txt to autorun.inf without writing anything to the file

2) find the command interpreter on your computer and run it as an administrator (click Start, then type cmd in the search box and right click on the shortcut, selecting "run as administrator" - this step isn't needed in Windows XP and below);

3) go to the drive of your USB stick by typing its letter followed by a colon (eg - F: ). Check the screen now shows F:> Type the following -

attrib +s autorun.inf

This sets the system attribute. I usually add the read-only attribute for good measure: making the command attrib s r autorun.inf in this case. Test the new autorun.inf by trying to delete it or rename it; both should be impossible.

If you want to do it the loafer's way, Panda has something called USB Vaccine that you can download for free, and which creates the same, system-attributed autorun.inf file on your drive.

I didn't get a single virus on my drive after using cybercafes for three months on the Indian sub-continent.