As a followup to 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 daily. Some of these might not be necessary for everyone out there, but they certainly are for me.
Leave me a comment if you can think of a freeware application that you still need despite Leopard’s new features.
VLC: Quicktime is a powerful video player but is somewhat limited in its file compatibility. For files that Quicktime doesn’t support I rely on the great Video LAN Player or VLC. VLC is a cross platform player capable of playing nearly every file format. If you’d prefer to stick with Quicktime you can add the Perian add-on, a.k.a. the swiss army knife of quicktime components.
AppDelete is the freeware version of the very popular shareware application AppZapper. While removing unwanted applications is super easy in OS X, these applications often leave behind stray files. AppDelete tracks down these files and presents you with the option of deleting them.
Cyberduck remains my favorite freeware FTP client. It supports both FTP and SFTP protocols, stores frequent locations as bookmarks and integrates with growl for notifications. One look at the changelog and it is clear that is an application under robust development.
Whatsize is a great little utility that measures the size in bytes of a given folder and all its subfolders. This tool is essential when trying to recover disk space or track down a bloated folder or log file. Nothing in Leopard allows such easy visualization of disk usage. Update - a reader correctly noted that Whatsize appears to no longer be ‘freeware’ but instead exists somewhere between donationware and shareware. Those wanting to stick with true freeware should try Disk Inventory X.
svnX: While subversion comes already installed on Leopard the user is limited to command line without a GUI. Well, svnX comes to rescue as a full featured GUI for Subversion, allowing users to browse working copies, spot changes, and operate on them, search logs, and of course browse revisions!
Chax is a collection of minor modifications and additions that make using Apple’s iChat more enjoyable. Some of Chax’s nicer featuress include a unified contact list shows all contacts from all accounts in one window, support for growl notifications of new messages and user status changes, and automatically resizing the contact list to fit the number of visible contacts.
Gimp: I dream about Apple someday releasing a competitor to Adobe’s Photoshop. Until then there is Gimp, a capable alternative to Photoshop. I’m hoping someone will develop a Cocoa version, then I wouldn’t have to run X11. In fact, there seems to be just such a project underway here although I can’t tell how far along it is.
TextWrangler: Leopard’s version of TextEdit.app is slightly improved over Tiger’s but doesn’t even come close to cutting it for code wranglers. TextWrangler is baby brother of Bare Bone’s Software’s BBedit, the leading professional HTML and text editor for the Macintosh.
Texshop: For anyone that uses LaTeX to typeset documents, Texshop is a must-have. Texshop provides a full featured editor as well as useful macros, templates and even some LaTeX related AppleScripts. Not familiar with LaTex, you can find out more here.
Freeware? Whatsize is no longer freeware I’m afraid …
MacMacken | Dec 28, 2007 | Reply
@MacMacken - Thanks for the feedback, I was under the impression that it was free to use so long as you didn’t want the ‘System Administrator functionality.’ I might be mistaken.
Franklin | Dec 28, 2007 | Reply
If you do text editing, you should really look into TextMate. I used to be a HUGE BBEdit fan. (my handle on AIM, MacWorld, and dozens of other places is BrunoUsesBBEdit) I switched from being a Microsoft and IE zealot to the Mac because there was no editor that could hold a candle to BBEdit. Then with release 8.0 they decided to remove a bunch of features. When I contacted the developer, they said they we’re trying to be “more like other editors”!!! To which I asked, “you mean the ones I chose not to use years ago when I became your customer?” TextWrangler is even less powerful than BBEdit.
Textmate was the greatest advance in Text Editors that I had every seen. You should try it.
I now, however, do all my coding in VIM because I live in the terminal SSH’ed to remote servers. I got tired of feeling like a gimp when TextMate wasn’t available and decided to learn one last editor that I could use on every machine anywhere. It was like learning to touch type all over again, but now after 3 years it’s second nature. My Mac [or Windows] using colleagues stand back and say “wow” when they see me in VIM.
Again, try TextMate.
RichardBronosky | Jan 6, 2008 | Reply
@Richard - I like TextMate as well. Have you tried out any of the custom themes? There is a BBedit theme that you might like.
Franklin | Jan 8, 2008 | Reply
For coding, Smultron is a great text editor. Highly recommended.
Mikey Benny | Mar 10, 2008 | Reply
Apple has released ‘an alternative to photoshop’. It’s called Aperture. It’s not a decent alternative, but it has been released by Apple.
If you’re looking for a cheaper alternative to full-blown photoshop, photoshop elements is $99 (usually), and does 90% of what most end-users need.
Christy | Mar 10, 2008 | Reply
@Christy - Good point! I guess I have always viewed Aperture as more of a competitor to Adobe’s Lightroom than Photoshop. Since I haven’t tried either Lightroom or Aperture I can’t comment on functionality differences. I started using Pixelmator and have been quite happy with it.
Franklin | Mar 11, 2008 | Reply
@Mikey - I tried Smultron about a year ago and it didn’t seem very polished at the time. Based on your recommendation I’ll give it another try. Thanks!
Franklin | Mar 11, 2008 | Reply
I have my own list of freeware http://appleintellect.com/top-25-best-mac-osx-freeware-apps-2/
Gabe Jacobs | Mar 17, 2008 | Reply