Kingston 2GB U3 Data Traveler includes ACDSee, Pass2Go
By Marc Perton 
posted Apr 11th 2006 10:44AM
posted Apr 11th 2006 10:44AM
The U3 standard for mobile applications continues to gain steam, with Kingston being just one of the latest to add another
U3-compatible flash drive to its lineup. The U3 Data Traveler, now in capacities of up to 2GB, comes bundled with
mobile versions of the Pass2Go password manager, the ACDSee image browsing application and the Zinio e-reader. It would
be nice if Kingston could also throw in mobile versions of apps like Firefox and Thunderbird, but it's easy enough to
download them from the U3 site. Kingston's a little vague on whether the software
on the drive consists of free "lite" versions, or trials of the full-featured programs, so don't be surprised
if you're hit with nags after using the drive for a while. The 1GB version has an MSRP of $47, while the 2GB goes for
$75.
I despise U3.
i really hate the DataTraveler line of usb flash drives, i can never get the caps off. way annoying.
Can you please tell me why you despise U3?
I never heared of it till today and i saw the video demo on their website (www.u3.com) and it looks pretty interesting. i would love to hear some feedback
I despise it because you can't remove it, at least I've never found a way to do it. It is a partition that doesn't go away. When you insert the flash drive, it's seen as a CD-ROM and, if you have autorun, it starts it up.
If I could remove it I wouldn't care. Otherwise, it's a nuisance and gets in the way.
FWIW, the U3 version of ACDSee sells for $50.
I spoke too soon. I was able to find a utility that will get rid of the stupid U3 partition.
http://tinyurl.com/hqktw
http://tinyurl.com/engrc
Can't get the caps off? Jeebus, every other flash drive on the market has the exact opposite problem, how can you complain about that? I'm so sick of reaching into my pocket for a usb drive and then having to blow the dust out of the plug because the cap went AWOL somewhere next to my change.
The company I work for makes a kiosk that records stuff to USB. These U3 devices didn't work, so we got one and analyzed it.
It's rather insidious. It pretends it is actually two devices, a CD-ROM device and a USB flash device. The CD-ROM has a fake autorun that loads its drivers, and then the device disappears.
So if you don't want the drivers to install, you can disable autoplay (we had done that on the kiosk already) or just do the good old hold-down-the-shift-key trick.
Now I can certainly see U3 as a good thing if you have to use a Computer Lab or Internet Cafe or something and don't want some jerk snooping your files... but for personal use, stay far, far away.
"It's rather insidious. It pretends it is actually two devices, a CD-ROM device and a USB flash device. The CD-ROM has a fake autorun that loads its drivers, and then the device disappears."
One person's insidious is another's genius. The CD-ROM device doesn't disappear, just starts the LaunchPad (which is not a driver, just a regular application that provides interface to installed apps). The keys themselves have private file area for "cookies", which U3 apps can use instead of the Registry to store preferences and licensing information. Finally, the LaunchPad provides system environment variables so that U3 apps can easily locate the drive and their own running directories. Works very well!
So what, the software creates it's own registry or something? No thanks, don't need it. I can run Firefox, Thunderbird, and Winamp directly from any USB drive. Plus, you can't use the USB drive without a computer. And I have a laptop.
"Plus, you can't use the USB drive without a computer."
Touch?.
If you don't like U3, then buy a USB drive without it. They're cheaper, too. Duh.
U3 doesn't work. I bought a U3 USB Key and tried to connect it to a work computer - it won't work unless you have administrator privileges which defeats the whole purpose of the device. Forget about using it on "any pc". If you don't believe me, check out the U3 forums on the official site before buying. Beware of the hype.
Not always. I bought the U3 version because it was cheapers.
U3 was more useful when I deleted it. It was infecting every Windows machine on the campus network I plugged it into and it had no value to me as a Mac user.
There is an uninstaller available from Geek Squad that tends to get reposted every now and then on the u3.com forums.
I also bought a U3 based USB drive. It is horrible. It has serious issues at some picture printing kiosks because it tries to load the U3 software and the kiosk times outs, not finding any of my pictures. They also are very annoying when used with Mac because you need to separately unmount the usb flash area and the stupid U3 virtual cd area or the OS complains. I really really dislike U3. I won't buy another one.