Comments on: A List of Mac Freeware that Leopard has Mauled to Death [Mac Freeware, Opinion]

By: A List of Mac Freeware Still Necessary in Leopard [Mac Freeware, Opinion] : Zaphu

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:59:20 +0000

[...] my last post about Mac freeware applications that Apple’s new operating system (Leopard) has mauled I decided to list some freeware applications that Leopard has left untouched and that I rely on [...]

By: J

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:49:45 +0000

“however, if Firefox 3.0 doesn’t arrive soon Firefox will begin to lose market share”

LIke Firefox had any market share on Ma cin the first place. A niche browser on an very very niche OS…

By: Franklin

Franklin — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 04:15:19 +0000

@Nick - I certainly understand your frustration with FF 2.0, perhaps you should give the 3.0 Beta a try. I am cautiously optimistic about FF 3.0, you can find the latest beta version here.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 14:40:21 +0000

“if Firefox 3.0 doesn’t arrive soon Firefox will begin to lose market share.”

In my case, if Firefox 3.0 doesn’t arrive soon Mac OS X will begin to lose market share. I’m used to running Firefox across every platform I use in my day to day computing, and the problems I’ve seen with Firefox on the Mac are (amongst other things) making me seriously consider switching back to Linux.

By: Avid Reader

Avid Reader — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 18:25:45 +0000

Franklin: My comment on the “mauled to death” discussion is that if I should say I am “bored to death” @ a party, event, etc., some of your readers must think I will really die from the effects of that activity! I have benefited from your tips and info for my Mac. Keep up the good work!

By: Franklin

Franklin — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:26:45 +0000

@Frost Land - WebKit, the engine behind Safari is open source, however, I’m not sure I’d consider Safari itself as open source.

By: Frost Land

Frost Land — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:33:30 +0000

Just in case you don’t notice, Safari IS open source, like Firefox…

By: Wayfarer

Wayfarer — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:26:55 +0000

BLASPHEMY! Journler and Adium have always been two of my favorite apps and I still using them daily after upgrading to Leopard. They are NOT flawed or obsolete.

By: Franklin

Franklin — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:56:42 +0000

@Chris B - “From a general standpoint, it’s actually nice to have less apps to install” - I completely agree. While I enjoy trying out new software it is nice not to have numerous extra apps to install.

By: Chris B

Chris B — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 04:42:54 +0000

Good discussion. As Franklin noted, the need for various apps due to Leopard updates will vary depending on the features you need. But, here’s my opinion
iTerm: this is the one I disagree on. Terminal is still lagging. I spend a lot of time at the command line. Simple things like iTerm’s bookmarks make a huge difference. I could probably rig up some solution for Terminal, but why, iTerm does it quite well, and has been working so much better than Terminal, well, since forever.

Adium: yep, I finally dropped Adium because iChat now supports multiple simultaneous logins to the same services (Jabber, etc.). Given that iChat also has the video chat stuff, this pushed me over the edge to now only needing iChat. I was a faithful Adium use for many years, and I would still easily recommend people check it out, just depends on your needs, as many, many folks have pointed out above.

Spaces vs. any virtual desktop: I’ve used all of the other solutions, and was last using You Control’s or whatever it was called (and previously used Virtue, as well as CodeTek’s until that basically become non-functional, etc.). Spaces gives me the features I need, and seems to actually work better than any other in terms of how well it knows what apps are on what desktops, and where to launch what apps, etc.

From a general standpoint, it’s actually nice to have less apps to install. Of course, as a part time independent software developer myself, it’s always hard to see an OS feature that potentially makes a 3rd party app obsolete or needed by fewer people. But, Apple, MS, and don’t think Linux’s are immune, have done this forever, so it’s not something new or something a 3rd party dev should think they are immune to (there are certainly cases that suck more than others, and cases where you just can’t understand why Apple didn’t at least just buy the existing product, etc., but so goes the industry).