Best Free Mac Software

Seeing as my fellow blogger Fred just made the switch to OS X, I thought I’d help him and other switchers out by posting a quick list of must have applications for OS X.

[ Internet ]
Firefox – Need I say anything else? My browser of choice no matter what OS you’re running.
Aduim – A feature rich Instant Messaging client, with a broad range of supported clients makes this a must have.
Tomato – A simple, easy to use BitTorrent client. I’m using it until the OS X version of uTorrent comes out
Cyberduck – A departure from the normal two paned view you might be used to in FTP programs, but still a robust program with support for FTP (File Transfer Protocol), FTP/TLS (FTP secured over SSL/TLS) and SFTP

[ Multimedia ]
VLC Player – Fast, stable and wide ranging codec support makes VLC a fantastic all around media player
Flip4Mac – Adds support for playing WMV files in QuickTime
LiquidCD – Excellent alternative to the native disc burning in OS X
Handbrake – It may not offer the widest range of options when ripping a DVD, but it’s straight forward and produces high quality rips with no hassle.

[ Misc ]
smcFanControl 2.1 – A must have for managing the fan speeds on your Macbook / Macbook Pro
Cashbox – Simple and easy to use software to keep track of your finances
Growl – Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X: it allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications.

Comments

One response to “Best Free Mac Software”

  1. Antonio Avatar
    Antonio

    Good topic. I’ve found iusethis.com for a source of popular apps and such. Off the top of my list would be the Unsanity products HERE, of course, as you’ve listed it already, Flip4Mac is excellent, and there’s also, iBackup, info.xhead, and another free one by the Flip4Mac people, Drive In.

Leave a Reply