U3 any good?

[JohnIrish]

I am looking at a new thumb drive... I will be moving from my home computer to a work computer... also on some "public" internet cafe's when I travel overseas.

What is the general thoughts on U3? Should I just load my own portable applications?

If I have some apps that are not currently U3.. can I still load them?

U3 seems nice.. but does it also load some software on the host computer to run?

I also want to be able to surf on my thumbdrive without leaving any traces on the host machine. It seems like the portable applications will do that. So.. why do I need U3? I read one report that said 70% of all thumbdrives sold in 2008 will be U3! Also, many people sometimes have problems runing U3 on different computers.

thanks!

 

[BigPoppa]

U3 is a pain in the ass. It takes much longer for the flash drive to be fully recognized and usable in the computer. That slowness alone made me dump it.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

U3 is ok

my kingston drive does take a good couple of minutes for the computer to get the U3 portion up n running. but once its there it good. at uni and at work i cant install stuff so on my U3 drive i have FF, trillian, open office and zoom player and it all works flawlessly.

the only bad thing is the U3 software doesnt seem to get updated as much. FF for instance is pretty old, or at least the U3 version im using now is. that at the slow start up time

 

[JohnIrish]

I have decided to skip the U3 for now... some people like it and some people hate it.

I found this site... http://portableapps.com/ No charge.. no fees... a very nice site with a good forum.

That seems like a much nicer way to go. Also.... the ATP Toughdrive seems to be one of the fasted now and I will give that a try.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Originally posted by: BigPoppa
U3 is a pain in the ass. It takes much longer for the flash drive to be fully recognized and usable in the computer. That slowness alone made me dump it.

Exactly what he said

Good in theory and I was looking forward to it, but in practice it sucks. I need to back up client data frequently. Thing is a huge pain in the ass having to load each time.

"Hold the shift key" blah blah blah

It's hard to do when I'm laying on the floor plugging it into the back of a PC.

 

[HN]

U3 is ok. I thought it was nifty at first but I still fine myself going back to just using Explorer to view all my crap.
You can simulate the U3 experience using the portable apps suite. You don't necessarily need the full suite. On my non-U3 drive, I loaded the base edition to have the menu and put in FF, VLC, gaim, clamwin, and 7-zip.

I'm on the verge of reformatting the U3 drive to remove all the U3 related stuff and putting in the portable apps suite on that one, too.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Note that you can't format and get rid of U3 generally, it still stays on the drive (at least true with Sandisk). You have to download and install their U3 removal tool.

 

[mad0maxx]

Originally posted by: BrunoPuntzJones
Note that you can't format and get rid of U3 generally, it still stays on the drive (at least true with Sandisk). You have to download and install their U3 removal tool.

That is not true... I have a Sandisk Titanium 2GB and the U3 preinstalled already came with a section that allowed you to fully remove the U3 without downloading any additional software to do so.

 

[EKKC]

my kingston u3 does not have the tool to remove it. at least i couldnt find it on kingston's website

its a good idea but i dont use it. before u3 came out i made my own u3-style stick, runs foxit, firefox, googletalk and a few other apps flawlessly. no need for additional clutter IMO.