Before you buy a flash drive, look carefully to see if there is a
small U3 logo on it. U3 is a software platform that lets vendors
load software applications that run entirely from a flash-based USB
key. These applications go way beyond simple file synchronization;
there are dozens of U3 applications available, including e-mail
clients, antivirus scanners, word processors, Web browsers, and even
a U3 version of Skype. You plug in the key and you can run those
apps on any PC. Best of all, they don't make any changes to the
system registry, leaving the PC without any evidence that you used
it. You can always download more applications from the U3 site, but
right now, U3-key vendors are differentiating themselves by offering
different software bundles with their products. Which drive is best
for you depends a lot on what types of applications you use most.
One quick tip for using a U3 drive: Although many of us have gotten
used to pulling out flash drives without demounting them, U3 drives
require that you eject them using the U3 interface. Otherwise, the
applications may not run properly. We pulled each drive out in
mid-process without any negative consequences, but there have been
reports of this causing problems.
USB thumb drives have shown themselves to be a superior alternative to other
portable media such as diskettes and writable optical discs. They're smaller and
can hold tons of data, and most current operating systems recognize them without
needing any special drivers. We've seen 1GB drives for under $100, and drives
with smaller capacities start at under $20.
Most people don't realize that these drives can also carry enough
applications to serve as a personal office on the road, and can even contain a
complete bootable operating system to provide total security when you are
computing away from home. There are plenty of reasons to carry applications or
an operating system on your USB drive: You'll have your e-mail and instant
messaging accounts, Internet bookmarks, log-on passwords, and even document
templates instantly available on any computer you find in a hotel's computer
centre, a home, or an office that you might visit. You can also be certain that
your settings will stay on your USB drive and won't be stored in the browser
cache or anywhere else on a remote machine. Here's what we put on our ultimate
USB drive; the programs are free for personal use, unless noted. Most of the
apps we describe can run entirely from the USB drive without installation.
Your Mobile Internet Office -
how to create a portable drive filled with applications and utilities that
could run entirely from the USB drive, without installation -
a great way to make your work more portable, since you can work on any PC,
and yourself more secure, since you don't leave your apps and data behind when
you disconnect from a public PC:
Enthralled by Firefox but frustrated that many PCs you use still don't have
it installed? Or perhaps you just prefer to steer clear of the spyware
potentially lurking inside Microsoft Internet Explorer, the more popular
browser? Firefox leaves no clues to your browsing activities on the remote
computer, something you can never be sure of when using IE. Developer John
Haller has created portable versions of Firefox, Thunderbird, the Sunbird
calendar application, and the NVU Web-page editor (all can be downloaded from
http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla ). Portable Fire-fox has minor
limitations when run from a USB drive, but the others work perfectly.
Portable Firefox 1.0.4
renders most sites exactly as it does when installed on your hard drive, but
Java applets will run only if Java (which will work only if it finds settings
already specified in the registry) is installed on the host machine. You also
won't be able to view PDF files if no PDF software is installed on the host, so
download the fast and tiny (less than 1MB) Foxit PDF Reader 1.3 for
standalone viewing of PDF files. You'll need to download PDFs instead of viewing
them in the browser. (
www.foxitsoftware.com )
If you install the Firefox Bookmarks Synchronizer extension, you can
upload new bookmarks to an FTP server and import them to your home machine when
you return, or download your bookmarks on the road if you forgot to update them
before you left. If you use Portable Firefox on a host computer that doesn't
have Firefox already installed, it creates two directories on the host, but your
settings, cookies, and other private files remain on the thumb drive. (
http://addons.mozilla.org
)
Portable Thunderbird 1.0.2 (beta),
based on the excellent Mozilla.org mail client, works without problems on a USB
drive. You'll get the best results if you have an IMAP account that lets you
leave messages on the server instead of transferring them to your drive, as you
normally do with conventional POP mailboxes. Although not as high-powered as
Microsoft Outlook for calendars and scheduling, Portable Sunbird 0.2 ()
gets the job done and may be enough for anyone whose work doesn't require
carrying an Outlook-equipped laptop everywhere. Portable NVU 1.0 Preview
Release
),
a basic HTML editor still in early development, is also trouble-free on a USB
key but doesn't compare to Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage.
For FTP and Secure FTP, FileZilla 2.2.14b lets you choose between a
secure mode that never stores passwords and a less-secure mode that stores
passwords in an XML file on your thumb drive. FileZilla doesn't have the
prettiest interface you've seen on an FTP client, but it's fast and secure, and
worth considering for your desktop machine as well as for your thumb drive. (
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net
)
The free Trillian Basic 3.1 instant messaging client works with AIM,
ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo! Messenger, but it isn't designed to be run from a portable
drive. The third-party Trillian Anywhere Web site provides simple instructions
for setting up Trillian on your hard drive, creating all its settings, and then
transferring it to a USB drive. The result is a trouble-free universal IM client
that leaves no traces on the host computer. (
www.trilliananywhere.com
)
John Haller has also created USB-friendly versions of the
http://OpenOffice.org
office suite; you can choose between a stable 1.1.4 version and a faster and
slicker 2.0 Alpha version. The 2.0 version fills 127MB, so you'll need a
generous-size USB drive, but it guarantees you a full-featured productivity
suite compatible with Microsoft Office wherever you plug in the drive. You may
need to click through the license agreement on each new host machine, but that's
a minimal inconvenience. (
http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/portable_openoffice
)
All work and no play makes for a dull USB key. Fortunately you can store your
favorite tunes on your thumb drive and listen to them with XMPlay, a
miniature but high-powered media player. It has the tiny, overelaborate
interface typical of freeware media players, but with downloadable skins that
can slightly improve it. Alternatively, consider CoolPlayer, a compact
open-source MP3 player that can be extended via plug-ins to handle almost any
current media format. (XMPlay,
www.un4seen.com/xmplay.html ,
;
CoolPlayer,
http://coolplayer.sourceforge.net ,
SecurityEvery time you plug a USB key into someone else's
computer, you risk catching a virus or other malware. For a scanner that
checks the full range of viruses found in the wild, download AntiVir
PersonalEdition Classic, which can be installed to your USB drive and
run from any host computer. (It puts a few Registry entries on your hard
drive, which you can remove or ignore.) One minor problem with AntiVir on a
USB drive: If you haven't used the drive for a day or two, you should run
the AntiVir updater as soon as you plug your drive into a new machine. But
after you run the built-in updater, the updater component remains in memory,
so the Safely Remove Hardware icon will tell you that you can't remove your
USB drive safely. You can use the Windows Task Manager to close down the
AntiVir process before removing the drive, or simply pull the drive out
without further ado if you're certain that no other program on it is still
running. ( www.free-av.com
)
If space is at a premium, make sure your USB drive has at least a reduced
antivirus program that focuses on a few high-risk attacks; McAfee's Avert
Stinger is probably the best. (
http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger
)
Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.06 isn't the most powerful spyware
remover—and ideally needs to be used in combination with other programs—but
you can carry it with you on a USB drive, and it's infinitely better than
nothing. Install it in the normal way to your hard disk, then simply copy
its folder to your USB drive. (
www.lavasoft.de
)
You'll also want to save your passwords securely. The most efficient way
to save Web passwords and forms is with Pass2Go ($39.95), also known
as RoboForm Portable, a version of our Editor's Choice RoboForm form filler.
If you browse the Web by running IE from the host computer while using a USB
drive, then you can simply run Pass2Go from the USB key; the host's copy of
IE will display the RoboForm toolbar and use your stored log-on information.
If you use Portable Firefox, you'll also need to download the RoboForm
Mozilla Adapter and follow the specific instructions on
www.roboform.com/removeable.html for Portable Firefox. While
running, Pass2Go writes files (but not your private settings) to a Temp
folder on the host's hard drive. It cleans up after itself when you exit,
leaving only a copy of the executable Pass2Go program on the host drive, and
no other settings. (
www.roboform.com
)
Among traditional standalone password storage programs, a good first
choice is KeePass Password Safe, a high-powered open-source utility
that uses AES and TwoFish encryption and is designed so that passwords won't
be visible to keystroke loggers or any other snooping software. It has
special storage for the use-once TAN (transaction number) passwords used for
online banking. The keyboard interface is somewhat unreliable; accelerator
keys such as Alt-F for the File menu or Ctrl-O for Open database
sometimes don't have any effect. (
http://keepass.sourceforge.net
)
To secure programs and data against prying eyes, you can use USB drives
that come with encryption already on the drive or software-only solutions
that can be installed on any thumb drive. Kingston Technology (
www.kingston.com )
uses a combination of hardware and software encryption on its DataTraveler
Elite USB drives. Other vendors, such as Lexar (
www.lexar.com ) and
Trek 2000 (
www.thumbdrive.com ), use software-only encryption that can be
installed only on the same vendor's USB drives.
In either case, the drive comes with software that divides it into a
normally visible region and an encrypted region. When you unlock the
encrypted region with a password, the visible region disappears, and the
same drive letter that the system assigned to the visible portion of the
drive is assigned to the encrypted region. When you log out of the encrypted
region, the visible portion regains its original drive letter, and the
encrypted portion becomes invisible. Some new drives, such as Lexar's
JumpDrive TouchGuard and SanDisk's upcoming Cruzer Profile line (
www.sandisk.com ),
include fingerprint authentication.
The software in these combined solutions works only with specific drives
sold by the same vendor. Software-only solutions that work with any USB
drive include Folder Lock ($35), which offers multiple levels of
encryption and a clear but graphics-heavy interface. The program creates a
password-protected folder that isn't visible in Windows Explorer or any
other directory listing until you run the program to unlock it. When you
lock the folder and exit the program, it completely cleans up after itself.
The encrypted folder is visible if you plug the drive into a Macintosh or
Linux system, although the contents and filenames are still encrypted. (
www.newsoftwares.net)
Other drive-encryption programs tend to be less convenient.
StorageCrypt 2.0.1 ($29.95) works only with drives that are formatted
with multiple partitions, each with its own drive letter. You install the
software on a partition that remains visible, and you run the software to
encrypt or decrypt a second partition. It's easy to use despite the badly
translated dialogs. StorageSafe ($29.95) doesn't require a
partitioned drive to start with but works by completely reformatting your
existing drive, wiping out any data that may be on it and creating a public
area and a protected, encrypted area that you unlock by running the program
and entering a password. Unfortunately, you need to install StorageSafe on
any host computer from which you want to access the protected area, and the
host computer may be set up so that you can't install anything. (StorageCrypt
2.0.1, www.magic2003.net
,
;
StorageSafe,
www.modsol.com/StorageSafe ,
.)
Environments to GoTo protect your privacy on the Web, you may
not need to have special security software. Instead, launch an emulated
Windows CE or Linux system on your USB drive.
You don't need to carry a PDA to use the Windows CE operating system
and its small-screen versions of IE and Windows Messenger. Just follow
the instructions on Steve Makofsky's weblog to learn how to download
Microsoft's free Windows CE emulator to your USB drive and use a
batch file to launch the emulator and save its settings on the same
drive. Make sure to read all the comments posted on the weblog to find
essential modifications to the method described in the initial post.
After you run the emulator for the first time, it restarts instantly
with the browser or IM client already open and ready for action if you
left them open earlier. You don't get an e-mail client or Firefox's
powerful browsing, but nothing else on a USB drive gives you the same
instant-on convenience, and you'll need only 32MB for the whole package.
No one seems to have figured out how to add other applications to the
default setup. (
www.furrygoat.com/2004/12/portable_ce.html
)
For even more security, you can run a miniature Linux system from
your USB drive without rebooting. Metropipe's Portable Virtual
Privacy Machine is a 125MB Linux environment that uses the
open-source QEMU emulator software to allow the Linux system to run
either in a window or full-screen on a Windows system. The Linux system
is Damn Small Linux, based on the popular "live CD" Knoppix
distribution, and includes Firefox, Thunderbird, and other open-source
applications (see the sidebar below). All settings are stored inside the
files used by the Linux system. On our 3-GHz test machines, the system
was painfully slow to start, the Technology Preview release available
during testing was buggy, and configuration programs that required the
keyboard did not respond to the keystrokes needed for navigating them. (
www.metropipe.net/ProductsPVPM.shtml
)
An Easier Future
Starting in fall 2005, you'll be able to buy many commercial software
products—including the ZoneAlarm firewall—in portable versions based on the
new U3 standard ( www.u3.com
), using a single launcher for all U3 programs on the drive and drivers
that automatically clean up all traces of your programs when you detach your
drive from the host machine. Though this will make things easier, the
software will require U3-compatible USB drives and probably won't be
compatible with your existing drives. But since there are already so many
good apps that can run on current USB keys, there's no reason to wait until
the new drives are out. Go ahead and load your thumb drive with apps for
your next road trip.
Edward Mendelson and
Dan
Costa
U3 : By Ben
Z. Gottesman
A company named U3, with support from several USB drive
manufacturers, is developing a platform that will make it easier for
software developers to build key-based applications. The manufacturers
have already unveiled their first U3 drives and applications. Keys
will be in stores by year end 2005,
We tested four U3-enabled drives, a 1 GB Verbatim Store
'n' Go U3 Smart Drive ($99,
www.verbatim.com),
a 512 MB SanDisk Cruzer Micro ($54.99,
www.sandisk.com),
a 512 MB Kingston U3 DataTraveler ($42,
www.kingston.com),
and a 256 MB Memorex U3 smart Mini TravelDrive ($29.99,
www.memorex.com).
Each manufacturer has chosen a different set of U3 applications to
bundle with the drives, but they all operate identically.
Plug the U3 drive into a USB port and Windows quickly recognizes
it. (U3 drives work with Windows 2000 SP4 or later, and all versions
of Windows XP.) Unlike a standard USB drive, the U3 drive is
assigned two drive letters, one for a small (4 MB) read-only area,
and a second for the rewritable area of the drive. The U3 drive
convinces Windows that the read-only partition is a
CD-ROM drive, which lets the drive use AutoPlay to run the U3 LaunchPad application launcher as soon as the key is inserted. Some
drives also run a tutorial the first time used.
Once the LaunchPad software is loaded, a U3 icon is placed in the
system tray. Click the icon and the LaunchPad comes up, looking very
much like the Windows Start menu. Your U3 applications are shown on
the left and various commands for managing the drive appear on the
right.
Adding Applications
The first drive we tried, the Verbatim Store 'n' Go, only came with one
pre-installed U3 app, McAfee U3 Anti-Virus, an on-demand scanner that can
check for viruses on your key and the system's local drives. Before
scanning, McAfee went out to grab the latest virus definitions and other
updates -- a 6 megabyte download! When we updated again the next day, it had
to get another six megabytes.
Eager to see what other apps we could run from the U3 drive, we clicked
the Download Programs button in the LaunchPad, which brought up the online
U3 Applications Directory. The directory wasn't working properly when we
tried it. It claimed to be listing the first ten of 119 U3 apps, but the
Next button didn't do anything. In addition, we kept getting errors when we
tried to download apps. But we weren't going to let this get in our way.
Knowing some of the apps that were U3-compliant, we headed to their
manufacturer's web site to grab them. Some were there, many were not.
We started at Siber Systems, which makes the excellent
Pass2Go
password manager. We downloaded the U3 app to
our hard drive and installed it using the Add Programs button in the
LaunchPad. Next, we headed to PreClick's web site to get PhotoBackPack, a
quick, lightweight image management program. The process was identical.
Download the app to the hard drive and choose Add Programs.
We're confident that the kinks in the U3 directory will be worked out by
the time the drives are on store shelves and you'll add apps more easily.
There will be a few free programs available, but many of the apps will be
trialware or fee-based. You can get a good idea of what will be available by
going to
http://software.u3.com. Many of the applications are U3-enabled versions
of the programs we mentioned in our Ultimate USB Key article. Among the
software we found were portable versions of the Firefox browser and
Thunderbird e-mail client, the Trillian instant messaging client, and a U3
version of the Skype Voice over IP application.
Launch List
Once apps are installed, you can designate which ones launch when the key is
inserted. Pass2Go defaulted to auto-launch, which made sense, but we're not
sure why PhotoBackPack would need to launch on startup.
To test
PhotoBackPack, we copied several pictures from our hard drive to the U3
drive. PhotoBackPack lets you view pictures from either location, but we
figured that the point of the app was primarily to help you view the images
that you take with you on the drive. The program crashed on us when we tried
to crop a large panoramic image, but otherwise worked fine.
Unfortunately, once the U3 drive contained images, Windows would ask us
what we wanted to do with the content on the drive each time we inserted the
key. This is what Windows would do with a regular USB drive, but it was
confusing since we felt the U3 system software should manage the key
instead.
To remove the drive, you're supposed to use the Eject button in the
Launchpad. A few times, we received error messages because not all the U3
apps had finished shutting down in time.
The Memorex drive shipped with McAfee Anti-Virus, Thunderbird, and Migo,
an app that lets you synchronize your system's files and Internet Explorer
favorites and other settings to the USB key. The SanDisk comes with
CruzerSync, which lets you synchronize Outlook data and documents to the
key. You can then send and receive e-mails from any PC that the drive is
attached to, even if Outlook isn't installed. The Kingston DataTraveler
doesn't have any pre-installed software.
As an aside, we like that the Memorex and Kingston keys let you attach
the connector covers to the back of the units when the drives are in use.
We've misplaced too many of these covers while the drives were connected to
our systems, because we had no good place to put them.
Overall, we think U3 drives will be very useful. You may have to do some
legwork finding all the apps that you need, and you may even want to grab a
few apps that aren't U3-enabled yet, such as OpenOffice.org, but it's still
a lot easier than hunting down all the apps on your own and configuring
them. Be careful when you buy that you are, in fact, getting a U3 drive.
Look for an indication on the USB drive's packaging that it's U3-enabled
since many of the keys are using the same product names as earlier, non-U3
versions.
Update 9/23/05: A reader sent a note about security concerns
relating to information left behind on the host PC. This will depend on the
applications that you're running on your U3 drive. Password managers such as
Siber Systems Pass2Go should evade most keyloggers. Other U3 apps like
ImagineLAN's PI Protector Mobility Suite (http://www.imaginelan.com/products.html)
redirect browser and e-mail temp files to the key (so they're not stored on
the local, host system). But if the system or app crashed, there is
potential that something could be left behind on the host PC.
This site is developing, therefore please use
browser 'refresh'/'reload' each visit