Mereo Portable

Mereo Portable is a tiny piece of software you can use to host HTTP servers and provide computer access to any other machine, whether it's in the local network or on the other side of the planet. It gives you the possibility to share personal files and folders with other people allowed to download content.

It has a set of rather advanced settings that need some time of accommodation. However, less experienced users can consult the help file for more information. It's pretty easy to configure once you get the hang of it. Mereo Portable is available via both a graphical and command-line interface.

The GUI has a simple design and structure, leaving out any unnecessary graphical elements and focusing on functions. It also integrates a new icon in the systray, which shows the server status and whose menu can be opened to start or stop the server as well as to open the webroot in the default file navigator.

You can indicate the directory on your hard drive that you want to share with the rest of the world (webroot), including files from subfolders, as well as enable directory browsing if the specified folder doesn't have an index.html or index.htm file (used for mapping).

The IP address of your workstation is displayed next to the PC name and log memory status in Mereo Portable, and it shall be used by others to gain access once the server is turned on. They also require a port, which can be set to any number you want (default is 80).

When Mereo Portable becomes operational by starting the server, remote users can enter your IP address and port number in their web browsers to be able to access contents via a tree view. Displayed details include the name, format, last modified date and size of each file, and it's possible to view file contents (e.g. plain text) and download items on click.

Directory browsing can be enabled or disabled while the server is active. Moreover, you can limit remote access to a single computer by IP address or host name, and ask the tool to automatically start for the current PC users or all with the preferred configuration (webroot, port, limited access, directory browsing, hide to systray).

It's also possible to change the character set, view and save log details with accepted connections, and create a list with favorite configurations. The utility can be hidden from the systray on minimization, folder contents can be shown even if index.html or index.htm exists, and the default number of maximum simultaneous connections can be modified (default is 1000, maximum is 65,535).

Taking everything into account, Mereo Portable turns out to be a reliable application for quickly configuring settings to host HTTP servers and share data with the rest of the world using just an IP address and port number in any web browser. System resources usage was minimal in our tests. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a security feature to provide web access using a secret code.