Pastebin is recognized Internet-wide as the place to go to paste your data and code snippets. Many people probably know of the service through releases by groups like LulzSec, but it serves a much greater purpose than just dumping hashed passwords and email lists. Pastebin.com is useful in any scenario where you've got a ridiculous chunk of text that you need to spit out in a clean and efficient way. Sending 300 lines of code by email or IM could get a little confusing.

Third-party developers have made desktop Windows applications to emulate some of the best web services, like MyImgur has done with Imgur. Pastebin.com is no different, and today I'd like to show you a neat little desktop application that makes the experience much easier.

PasteBin

PasteBin is a tool that brings the Pastebin.com service to your desktop and simplifies it. The download is very small and works on every version of Windows, XP and beyond. During the installation process, you can choose to install PasteBin or you can run it as a portable application.

pastebin tools

After launching the application, the core functionality is quite apparent.

pastebin desktop for windows

In the textarea, paste the data you're trying to submit to Pastebin.com. From there, choose what syntax you'd like to apply to the paste.

pastebin addon

To the right of the Submit button, there is an arrow pointing downwards. Clicking that arrow will bring down another set of additional options. You are able to define the paste expiration, the exposure (public, unlisted, or private), and the name of your paste. These are all optional.

pastebin addon

PasteBin will keep track of all of the pastes that you push through this application in the List tab of the interface. This is a really great feature.

pastebin addon

The table shows, for each paste you've submitted, the title, format, key (in the URL), privacy, size, expiration, full URL, and hits. Why is this so special and cool? This kind of information is otherwise only available to users with an account on Pastebin.com. With the PasteBin application, even unregistered "guests" are given the full experience.

Another great feature is the Export button, which will allow you to export your list to an HTML, CSV, TXT, or XML file for keeping. Here's a screenshot of my list exported as an HTML file.

pastebin tools

Though all of this functionality is catered towards making unregistered access more useful, you can also sign in to your Pastebin.com account through the application.

Another interesting perk of using PasteBin over the web interface is that I've never encountered a CAPTCHA when submitting a paste. Using Pastebin.com, you always (or almost always) have to enter a CAPTCHA to publish your paste. I can't explain to you why this step is bypassed by the application, but it's definitely worth acknowledging.

What do you guys think of PasteBin? For me, it's a great replacement for a web application that shortcuts unregistered users. PasteBin does a great service to those of you who are too lazy to go through the signup process! Let me know your thoughts in the comments.