The Top 10 coolest Mac freeware programs you've never heard of

The thriftmac collection has grown fairly large over the past few months, despite our efforts to list only the very best. Can we help it if there’s so much truly good stuff freely available for Mac people?

So to help you get your bearings, we’ve put together a sampling of programs that you’ve likely never heard of — but wish you had. We’ve chosen one from each category, and we have a grand finale at the end. No peeking!

Games: neverball — If you’re at all familiar with the commercial game Marble Blast, you have a good idea of how neverball works. You use your keyboard to navigate a marble through fantasy landscapes, overcoming obstacles to reach a final destination. It’s fun, challenging and non-violent.

Internet: Cooliris — Admit it. Sometimes you’re not quite sure if you really want to go ahead and click on a link. But what if you could see a preview of your destination? Cooliris makes this possible for Firefox and Safari by showing a popup with a picture of what the link points to as you hover. Both useful and cool at the same time.

Text: DreamDiary — There’s all kinds of uses you can find for a text editor or a word processor — most of which involve work. But why not keep track of your inner world by jotting down your dreams and organizing them by date and subject. You just might detect some interesting trends and discover new things about yourself.

Graphics: MilkyWay — They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so why depend on file names to describe your picture files? One click on an icon with MilkyWay running pops up a window with the picture nicely displayed in a 3D setting. You can even change the display for other cool effects.

Utilities: Grand Perspective — Utilities do a lot of the necessary work to keep you Mac in tip-top shape, so it’s not often they can be described as fun. But Grand Perspective comes close as it scans your folders to create a colourful depiction of what is inside them. You can then hover with your cursor to see what files the various colours represent — and at the same time see what’s taking up space on your hard drive.

Organizers: Jumpcut — Multiple clipboards are so handy that Apple seems to have finally discovered them and will make them standard in Leopard — the new version of Mac OS X coming early next year. But you can have this function now with Jumpcut. Once you have copied multiple snippets of text you can paste them from a translucent display invoked by a keyboard shortcut.

AudioVideo: Max — Pretty much all audiovideo apps are by definition cool because, after all, you’re most likely using them for music and movies. Max stands out from the crowd by allowing you to get the high quality audio you deserve in a selection of formats to suit every taste.

Etcetera: Genius — What higher goal could there be than the lifelong pursuit of learning? Genius helps us along that path by providing a tool for memorization. Create your own questions and answers, then let Genius quiz you until you get them down pat. I can confidently say that I know the capital of each province and territory in Canada, thanks to Genius.

iPod: Encyclopodia — iPods are great for music, pictures, video, games, knowledge bases … what a minute — knowledge bases? Yes, you can actually install the famous Wikipedia on your iPod for on-the-go reference. The catch is that you also have to install Linux. Well, we never said being cool would be easy.

And now, as promised, the grand finale. If you stop by thriftmac regularly, you’ve probably heard all about Kidifree. But we just couldn’t resist adding it to the list for the newcomers out there. (Hello, Problogger visitors!) Kidifree is a program that keeps a live database full of freeware, divided into categories. You could explore it for hours, unearthing more Mac freeware than could possibly be placed in any list. It’s mostly in French, though, with a smattering of English — so mind the language barriers.

Posted Wednesday, August 16, 2006 in

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Comments are open

  1. Great list! It’s nice to see other Mac submissions in the ProBlogger contest besides mine.

    fcodc :: Mac Recon

  2. This is an excellent list—I’m going to check some of these out when I get home tonight, seeing as I work on a (grr) PC. I have to relegate my Mac use to my off-hours.

    Genie
    http://www.theinadvertentgardener.com

    Genie

  3. I’d never heard of Cooliris before, I’m going to try it out now! Thanks for the great list.

    Yvonne

  4. Well, I’m off to check these out, thanks! Our list is up if you’d like to look… have a great day!

    Mama Duck

  5. Nice list… My mac will say “yummy!” to this!!!

    Chrz,
    Jan

    Jan

  6. Wonderful post! Now if someone could point me out to a free MacBook..

    Damien

  7. Nice list. Genius would be a huge help for school.

    koby

  8. VERY well done! Downloaded ‘Genius’ and can’t wait to try. Thank you so much!!!

    [ARB1D3_[00L3R

  9. A neat little list. Shame encyclopodia only works on older ipod generations…

    Tom Howe

  10. A co-worker suggested to me this website and I am really starting to enjoy it… I’ve already downloaded a few apps, and plan to download more…. ThriftMac, DON“T STOP RUNNING!! You’re making a lot of people happy… I know I am… I’m seriously suggesting this to my friends who are Mac users…

    JAY jones

  11. ^^

    And he has. :P

    S.Higgy

  12. thriftmac is here to stay ;)

    Mark





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