A storm of freeware
AppStorm has a list of 60 open source and free Mac apps — not to mention a bunch more offered up in the comments. The programs are divided into categories, and guess what: Twitter has its own category.
Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 in Top-apps
Free alternatives to iMovie
Not everyone is crazy about the direction Apple has taken with iMovie, but fortunately there are freeware alternatives you can take a look at. Fan Cinema Today has a list of four of them.
Posted Thursday, April 16, 2009 in Top-apps
Rate your freeware — and payware
We’ve just started up a neat little side project called MacFaves, where you can submit and vote on your fave Mac apps. It’s something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, but couldn’t figure out a good way to do it until we came across a cool new service called Slinkset.
Once you login to MacFaves, you can submit an app you feel deserves to be on the list along with some comments. Currently, there are two categories to choose from — freeware and payware. We figured this would appeal to thriftmac readers in their quest for free stuff.
You can also go through the list and vote an app up or down as you see fit. We’ve already salted the list with half a dozen apps sitting in the dock here at thriftmac HQ — just to get things rolling.
To top things off, there’s a widget running in the sidebar at right so you can tell at a glance what’s going on at MacFaves.
It’s all meant to be in good fun, but with any luck you may find yourself discovering some cool new programs. Be sure to let us know what you think of the site, either in the comments below or by email. Should there be more categories? Should we focus only on freeware? Is it too much like iusethis?
Speaking of side projects, don’t forget macgameshuffle — it’s a great way to explore dozens of absolutely free Mac games.
Posted Sunday, March 22, 2009 in Top-apps
Six more Mac freeware lists
It’s been awhile since I linked to a Mac freeware list, but thanks to StumbleUpon I’ve come up with a half-dozen that should be fun to explore:
» Emma Alvarez, who describes herself as an illustrator, has compiled a list of 55 free and open source Mac apps aimed at designers. I had no idea there were so many.
» MacRumors deals in more than just rumours — they also have a series of Guides, one of which is compilation of free Mac games. It’s quite a long list, but I have the impression it is not being actively maintained.
» Reality Distortion has another 10 free Mac games — in his opinion the best.
» MacMembrane introduces some of the lesser-known freeware apps, which is always cool because you’re bound to find something new.
» MacRecon claims to have the ultimate list of Mac freeware — and there certainly is a lot of it. Included are some screensavers, which is a nice touch.
» Locally Type, finally, lists 10 he couldn’t live without. You’re not likely to make any discoveries here, but it can be fun to see if you agree with his choices.
Posted Friday, March 20, 2009 in Top-apps
The rise of web-based services
David Allison has published a list of his top 10 free Mac utilities. Interesting to note is that four of them are programs associated with web-based services: Skitch, Dropbox, TweetDeck and Google Notifier. There’s definitely a trend here, but I see two potential problems. One is trusting an online service not to lose your stuff. The other is the viability of these services. Eventually they’re going to have to come up with a way to stay in business — and that might mean asking for payment.
Posted Monday, February 23, 2009 in Top-apps
Freeware stash at Kainjow
You might know about Semulov, the nifty utility that keeps track of your mounted volumes from the menu bar. But did you know that developer Kevin Wojniak has four other freeware offerings at his Kainjow website? There’s Timeous for keeping track of your projects, Menulicious for viewing your del.icio.us posts and tags, Bootchamp for quickly booting into Windows, and DropJPG for easily converting most image formats to JPEG. Enjoy!
Posted Saturday, January 31, 2009 in Top-apps
Lifehacker's top 10 for 2008
Lifehacker has put together a list of the best Mac freeware for 2008. Topping the list, and receiving 46 per cent of the votes, is the ever-popular Firefox 3. The only other program to get votes in the two-figure range is Dropbox, a web-based service that allows you to store, sync and share files online. Lifehacker put some innovative stuff on the list, so be sure to check it out.
Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 in Top-apps
Ten plus fifteen
The 10: Jackson Chung has published part two of his free alternatives to commercial Mac apps. It’s a neat way of looking at freeware, because you can see how much money you’re saving. His list runs the gamut from the obvious (Cyberduck) to the obscure (fruux).
The 15: Best of the Web, meanwhile, claims to have freeware so essential that you should keep them “on a CD or DVD for the next time you do a clean install—they’re that good.” For the most part, I agree that these are all great apps. I’m not so sure about GeekTool, though.
Posted Monday, October 27, 2008 in Top-apps
Free apps for graphic and web design
Specky Boy runs a blog filled with lists related to graphic and web design — including this one with 28 free Mac apps for designers. There’s a lot of good stuff in here, so glance through it and see what you can find.
Posted Saturday, October 18, 2008 in Top-apps
Free alternatives
makeuseof.com has a list of 10 free alternatives to commercial apps, ranging from the obvious to the obscure. For example, you likely already know about GIMP as a replacement for Photoshop and NeoOffice as a replacement for Microsoft Office — but how about NTFS-3G as a replacement for Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X? More proof that you just never know what will show up on these lists.
Posted Friday, September 19, 2008 in Top-apps
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