Five portable security apps you should carry on your USB drive

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Introduction

NOTE: If you'd prefer to view this information as a blog post, check out this entry in our Five Apps blog.

Portable apps make life easier for system and network administrators, and security is one area where portable apps can make a big difference. But there are so many to choose from, it's hard to piece together a collection of tools that best fit your needs. Here are a few portable security apps you might never have heard of. Even if you only take away one or two of these tools, your portable security toolkit will have improved significantly.

Photo: iStockphoto.com/AndreyTTL

SmartSniff

SmartSniff enables you to capture TCP/IP packets traveling on a network adapter and view the packets between source and destination.

SmartSniff

The TCP/IP conversations can be viewed in ASCII mode (for text-based protocols, such as HTTP, SMTP, POP3, and FTP) or as a hex dump (for non-text based protocols, such as DNS). Having SmartSniff with you allows quick troubleshooting a networking issue from any PC on your network.

Omziff

Omziff is an encryption utility that can encrypt, split, and securely delete files (according to DOD standards), create file hashes, and generate random passwords. The encryption allows you to choose from all the standard types (Blowfish, IDEA, Twofish, and more).

Omziff

Omziff also includes a few utilities (random number generator, file append, and a command prompt) that can help you with other tasks.

Eraser Portable

Eraser Portable is a secure data removal tool that can remove data from a drive with multiple wipes, pattern writing, and more.

Eraser Portable

The portable version of this tool is based on the full version of Eraser and offers the same features. It can erase files, folders, and even previously (insecurely) deleted files. You can also instruct Eraser Portable to automatically restart or shut down a PC.

Remove Fake Antivirus

Remove Fake Antivirus should really have a better name. But even with the wacky name, the tool does exactly what it says it does -- checks for any fake antivirus and removes it.

Remove Fake Antivirus

The tool removes nearly 50 antivirus variants. It can be run as a portable app or, with the help of some scripting, can be saved on a drive and run on schedule or at bootup.

BleachBit

BleachBit is one of the best tools for freeing up hard disk space and guarding privacy. It frees cache, deletes cookies, clears Internet history, shreds temporary files, deletes logs, and discards various types of junk you may not have known was on a system

BleachBit

BleachBit is available as a portable app as well as an installable for both Windows and Linux.