How to try other browsers without installing them

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!