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I am looking for a free, simple and portable GIS viewer. Any suggestions?

By 'free', I mean gratis long-term, and not some trialware version or a version with 'restricted' functionality (e.g. < 1000 objects).

By 'simple' I mean a very basic, easy-to-use GIS viewer for a non-GIS user, like zooming, panning, identifying, switching on/off layers, etc. It still needs to be able to handle large data files though. Portable versions of ArcMap or QGIS are far too complex.

By 'portable' I mean a viewer that can be:

  1. installed on a USB memory stick or on a DVD without needing any admin rights or without installing any files (e.g. DLLs) on the PC;
  2. run from the memory stick or DVD

By 'viewer', I mean a GIS that doesn't allow creating, updating, or deleting the data.

I tried ArcGIS Explorer Desktop but didn't like it.

The whole point is that I can give my clients a memory stick with a GIS and the data on it, and he can just plug and play, and explore the data without having to bother his internal IT department for getting software installed.

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    What client applications are available? Do they have internet connectivity? You could build a totally disconnect leaflet application with copies of the Leaflet CSS and JS files, and have a GeoJSON file that the Leaflet application uses - but would require a web browser to view...
    – DPSSpatial_BoycottingGISSE
    Dec 18, 2015 at 17:14
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    I second mapBaker's suggestion of looking into web-based map viewers. Many IT departments will not even let you run untrusted executable files without admin privileges, in addition to not allowing you to install them.
    – J. Taylor
    Dec 18, 2015 at 17:46
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    This also assumes the unused USB ports are not disabled, and will permit mounting the device.
    – Vince
    Dec 18, 2015 at 18:08
  • Have you considering creating a geoPDF? Users can turn layers on and off and identify feature attributes.
    – artwork21
    Dec 18, 2015 at 18:59
  • OpenJUMP core version is about 20MB but users can create, update, and delete data. I can't say how difficult it would be to disable the possibility to set layers editable. It feels like a small job.
    – user30184
    Dec 18, 2015 at 20:05

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