All the Mac OS X freeware here is top-notch, highy recommended and of interest to a wide variety of Mac users. And when we say freeware that truly does mean free — no demos or tryouts. If you have any suggestions — especially for cool Mac freeware we may not have heard about — please contact us.
SurfBits has a list of “essential” Mac freeware, although it might be better termed “popular” freeware. Quicksilver, Adium, VLC Player and other big names are all there. It might seem like nitpicking, but do you find these apps to be essential? That is, according to the Mac’s built-in dictionary, “absolutely necessary” or “extremely important”?
An old feature is back and a new one is on the go. You can now see lists of new and popular freeware in the sidebar on the right. On the front page they show all the new and popular apps, but in the various sections you can see what’s new and popular in games, graphics, iPod and so on. It’s a lot of fun — and sometimes surprising — to see what’s clicking.
Two years ago, when thriftmac was still a babe in arms, we created a top 10 list. A lot has changed since then — thriftmac has a fresh, new look and some of those favourites from back then just don’t cut it any more. In our new highly subjective top 10, three get to stay and seven get the boot.
Here are the ones we’re sticking with:
Pastor: Still a quick and easy way to store serial numbers, passwords and the like. Still getting regular updates.
NetNewsWire: We used to recommend the lite version, but now we can recommend the full version, which of course is even better — and it’s gone free.
Cyberduck: Unless you have specialized needs, there is no real reason to pay for an FTP client.
Here are the newcomers:
Jumpcut: Multiple clipboards seems like a no-brainer feature, but it still isn’t built into the system. Of all the freeware options, we like Jumpcut best.
Transmission: The combination of a great interface and superior performance make this the P2P program of choice.
xPad: A tried a true method for keeping notes without the hassle of a learning cure. (Replaces Sidenote, which accidentally slid out from the side one time too often.)
MainMenu: Maintain your Mac from the menu bar with handy access to cron scripts, permissions and lots more. We know all about Onyx, but it’s overkill for our needs. (Replaces MacJanitor, which does only a fraction of the work.) Update: Unfortunately, no longer free.
iStat menus: Sure it’s great to have neat little graphs in the menu bar to let you know how your Mac is doing under the hood. But even better is that you can customize the date and time to your heart’s content. (Replaces wClock, long abandoned by its developer.)
Firefox 3: At last, Firefox is speedy enough and Mac-like enough that we can recommend it on a par with Safari. (Replaces Camino, which is still loved, but lags in plug-in power.)
Smultron: Text editors have raw processing power missing in word processors, and for the Mac it’s hard to beat Smultron. It might not be as powerful as TextWrangler, but its clean interface and support for HTML have won many friends.
Here some others that get the boot:
Seashore: It was hard to let this one go. It’s just that we found 10 others we liked better. Seashore offers gradients, textures, anti-aliasing, multiple layers and alpha channel editing for your basic image editing needs.
Silverkeeper: Who needs it when you’ve got Time Machine? And even if you don’t have Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner is a much better solution. Or use the free version of SuperDuper along with Time Machine for the ultimate backup.
PixelNHance: It’s still a great program, but you’ll find much of its functionality in the latest version of iPhoto, which of course comes free with your Mac.
There may be a few kinks to work out here and there, but it looks like thriftmac is up and running with its bold new look.
There are a couple of new things you may have noticed: First, the blog categories are listed on the left side for you convenience. Second, recent comments are also listed — not just for the blog but also for the various freeware sections. When I first made the switch, I was appalled to discover that all the recent comments were spam. I’ll have to keep an eye on this.
A listing of new freeware is missing for now because with the switch we had to start from zero. The list will reappear as new freeware is added. A new feature we hope to add is popular freeware. This list will be determined by clicks, but we need to build up a few before they can be presented.
The one carry-over from the old thriftmac is our good, old friend, Scrimpy, who now enjoys a place of prominence at the top. If you hover your cursor over him, he tells you his name.
In the course of designing the site, I stuck with modern standards as closely as possible. Unfortunately for users of Internet Explorer 6, this means some of the spiffy stuff is missing. For example, Scrimpy’s hover effect will not work. I also used transparent PNGs in some places because they look nicer. You won’t see them in IE6, so the site might seem a little plain. There was no intention to hurt anyone’s feelings. I just wanted to move on and not have limitations on the design.
If you notice any problems, please let me know and I’ll fix them ASAP. Other than that, I’m curious to know what you think of the design in general.
We linked recently to an article that points out some interface design inconsistencies found in Firefox 3. This prompted a suggestion from a reader that we try the GrApple themes to make Firefox look more like Safari. It’s a matter of opinion as to which browser has the better looks, but Safari — as the default browser — has come to define much of what we expect from a Mac app.
Among the 10 Mac freeware apps recommended at Res Ispa Blog for switchers is iStat. A lot of people like this one for the way it displays stats about your Mac in the menu bar — CPU, memory, drives, network, temps, fans and power, and Bluetooth. That’s all cool, but not quite cool enough that I actually want to install it. Then I remembered reading somewhere that it also allows you to customize the time and date. I’ve been using a long-abandoned program called wClock for this purpose, so I thought I’d see if iStat would be a better way to go.
The first thing I noticed about iStat is that it installs as a preference pane. This somehow seems like a neater way of doing things than making wClock a startup item. And once you fire it up, there are actually three ways of customizing time and date. First, there is a popup list to choose from. Second, there is a drag-and-drop method that allows you to mix and match several options. And third, you can do your own coding. I chose mix and match and I am now able to look at Monday, June 23, 2008 10:26 AM — just the way I like it.
My only beef is that iStat insists on putting a calendar icon — similar to the one for iCal — beside it. You can change the colour, but you can’t make it go away. On the plus side, clicking on it pops up a handy calendar, clocks giving times from cities of your choice, and a shortcut to iCal. Curiously, there is a shortcut to Apple’s built-in Date and Time preference, but not one for iStat.
Despite these minor drawbacks, iStat looks like a winner, and wClock’s time may have finally passed. Who knows — I might even put up a few other stats while I’m at it.
Update: I found a way to get rid of the icon. When editing the format, change the Mode in the top right corner to Text. And indeed you can take a shortcut to the iStat preferences by clicking on one of the clocks. So that takes care of even my smallest of quibbles. iStat gets an unequivocal thumbs up.
If you thought Lego was just for kids, truck on over to Apple Bits and read about how LEGO Digital Designer got hijacked by the dad and was named of the of the greatest Mac freeware applications ever.
No matter how hard we try to keep the Dark Side out of our pristine Mac universe, the occasional Windows file (.prn, OLE, CHM, MHT, UIF) still makes it in. Chris Pirillo has Mac freeware solutions for dealing with them.
Reggie Ashworth has decided to require a donation of at least $5 after a few uses of AppDelete. It’s a shame, because it made a nice freeware alternative to the $12.95 AppZapper. But, as always, we support the right of developers to put bread on the table, and we hope you do too. Unfortunately, it does mean AppDelete will be deleted from the thriftmac collection.
snap2objects has a list of 24 — yes, 24 — free Mac design programs. There are the usual suspects like Inkscape and GIMP, but there are a lot of surprises as well. For example, I had no idea you could get a free version of the 3D modelling program Bryce.
Gus Bendinelli dropped a line to let everyone know that his Mac freeware site is alive and well at a new address. He dishes out a freeware mini-review once a day, so it only makes sense that he calls it Free Mac App A Day. Gus’s site has a nifty Leopard theme, and there is plenty of freeware for your perusal.
Tuesday is launch day for Firefox 3, and here at thriftmac we feel we can finally recommend Firefox on an equal footing with Safari and Camino. But there are still some nit pickers out there — among them, Johan Sanneblad, who insists that problems remain with Firefox’s look and feel. He notes that buttons, menus, window design and form layout are not quite up to OS X standards. And now that he’s pointed out these inconsistencies, I’m afraid they might start bothering me as well.