Looking for a way to enjoy your media on-the-go without installing software? Free portable media players for USB drives are the perfect solution. These lightweight and compact applications let you carry your favorite audio and video files wherever you go, all while running directly from a USB flash drive or other removable storage devices. No need to install anything—just plug in your USB drive, launch the app, and you’re ready to enjoy your music, movies, and videos, regardless of where you are.
Portable VLC Media Player is a free, open source cross platform VLC portable media player that can play most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols. Additional features include the ability to play codecs such as FLV, AVI, OGG, DivX, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MP3, WAV and many other streaming protocols.
ALLPlayer is a free and portable media player. As the name suggests, it can be used to play ALL media types or formats. It also utilizes DirectX, includes a speech synthesizer, and houses its own built-in Media Conversion Tool. It has been noted as the most popular media player for watching movies with subtitles.
MPlayer WW is a powerful and portable freeware media player developed by William Wang. Based on the popular MPlayer engine, it supports an extensive list of playback formats, making it a versatile tool for playing audio and video files without the need for additional codecs. Whether you're watching a movie, listening to music, or enjoying a podcast, MPlayer WW provides smooth, high-quality playback in almost any format.
SMPlayer is a free portable media player. It features built-in codecs that can play back all popular audio and video formats and includes support for Chromecast. Much like the VLC Media Player that I have also reviewed, this tool can be stored and run entirely from a removable device such as a USB drive.
SUPER Media Player: (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer) can be used to convert one type of media format to another. It can convert iPod and mobile formats as well making it a great tool for those who use portable media players.
KMPlayer is a Free Portable Media Player that can be run entirely from a USB device. It can be used to play many popular file formats, including DVD, VCD, AVI, ASF, MKV, MP4, MPEG, OGM, WMF, RealMedia, Quicktime and almost every audio file without installing additional codecs.
Swiff Player is a free stand alone SWF player that can be used to play .swf flash files and movies. It supports OpenGL hardware acceleration and can play back swf files full screen at maximum frame rates. Swiff supports 3D effects as well.
MPUI is a free media player alternative that acts as a user-friendly graphical front end for MPlayer. This versatile media player supports playback of hundreds of video and audio formats including MPEG 1, 2, 4 (DivX), H.264, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and AAC — all without requiring additional codec installations.
MPUI can be used as a standalone free DivX player, making it ideal for playing DivX movies and DVD videos across platforms with ease.
Media Player Classic is an Open Source Portable Media Player that can be run entirely from a USB device. It looks a lot like Microsoft Windows Media Player version 6.X. However don't be confused, this is one powerful free media player.
Free FLV Player is a stand alone (FLV) Portable flash video player that allows a user to play Adobe flash video files on a Windows PC. Flash Video files can be opened and played back either from a locally saved .flv file or streamed from a URL. This flash media player supports drag and drop functionality as well as full screen mode.