Unofficial Favorite Freeware Thread

[UncSki1218]

I've been hoping they would add one but nothing yet. So here it is. I'm hoping the freeware thread can be a place to talk about your favorite free apps or find out about new ones from fellow forum members.

Hopefully, we can find new apps to make our macs even better. Perhaps we could even get some one who reviews apps. I'm kind of thinking the following format. Maybe the title is the name of the app. Then a brief description, and a link to the site. Finally, a rating.

Anyways, feel free to request an app that suits your needs or tell others about a new one. Anyone who has any suggestions go ahead and make them. I'll post a review for the first app shortly.

 

[UncSki1218]

Quicksilver

First, I would like to talk about one app in particular. Quicksilver is a phenomonal app that launches and controls your favorite apps. It hides in the backround and uses little memory. But by pressing control spacebar...a little box pops up. You just type in the first few letters of the app you're wishing to open, press enter...BAM. Its right in front of you. It as a great compliment to Spotlight. Spotlight find better and Quicksilver launches better. I've had Quicksilver for as long as I've had my mac but for people new to the mac community, you'll love it.

http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

 

[surfwax95]

Ahh Quicksilver, crashed my computer so many times I lost count.

I eventually moved on to Butler which does everything Quicksilver does, plus a whole lot more. (and it doesn't cause Mac OS X to crash while my computer is asleep)

One bad thing compared to QS, it uses 4 more MBs of memory.

So that's my favorite Freeware.

9.8 / 10

 

[Guitarist]

My personal favorite is CoverFlow.

Makes Itunes fun. Basically displays all the albums on your computer and you can sort through them and choose which one you want to play. Gorgeous design. I love it.
www.steelskies.com

10/10

 

[macAttack]

my favorite is skype.
its FREE computer to computer talking

P.S. isn't quicksilver like spotlight in tiger?

 

[rs2sensen]

one of my Favorites is YASU. (yet another system utility). It is very good at running maintenance (cron scripts, repair permissions, clear caches, etc.)

http://www.jimmitchelldesigns.com/yasu.html

 

[UncSki1218]

Yes spotlight is similar. But if you know what you want, quicksilver is faster. Also it has features that can control things within apps. They compliment each quite nicely.

 

[UncSki1218]

Sudoku Companion

My next review is for Sudoku Companion. Sudoku puzzles are wildly popular in Japan, Great Britain, and now...the United States. Companion is a great app for anyone who loves these fun, intriguing puzzles. It is a simple, clean, Mail-like app. Every time you open it it gives you a new puzzle to solve. Features include: writing notes in each box, showing all possible numbers in each box, solve puzzle, five difficulty levels, a timer and more. It does lack a few key feautres found in other apps that must be purchased. All in all Sudoku Companion should suit your puzzle needs.

Note: It is technically shareware but you can use at as much as you want with full features except that a box asking you to buy it pops up each time you open it.

http://www.verek.com/products/sudoku_companion/index.html

Rating: 8/10

 

[Joolz34]

Id like to recommend whatsize, its a utility for showing you exactly how much space each folder and file is taking up on your hard disk. If youve ever used treesize pro on a pc then you'll know what Im talking about. If not check it out its a useful utility to have and has a small footprint.

http://www.id-design.com/software/whatsize/index.php

Joolz

 

[lazvlizard]

Tofu

I use Tofu to read articles and sometimes even books on my Mac's. I cut and paste from a web page to TextEdit, save it , then drop it on Tofu. You can paste directly into Tofu, but if you want to edit the text a bit using TextEdit is best.

The speak text function (select text, then use the Edit menu >Speech>Start Speaking) works great.

This also works good with visual elements (small pictures) as it can handle RTFD type files. And links back to the internet can be live.

Tofu arranges text in 2 columns (each column is as high as your window). Text is now in easy-to-read chunks.

This little App can handle hundreds of pages of text and helps turn my powerbook into a "reader". My most used freware App!

http://homepage.mac.com/asagoo/tofu/

 

[haze]

Quicksolver is indeed one of the greatest freeware apps available.

Noise is one of the few freeware apps I've had since I got my iBook. You can simulate white noise or pink noise. The static sound (with pink noise) starts to sound like rain after awhile. This help drown out distractions around you and is an alternative to listening to music. I especially like using it because when I listen to music I tend to sing along instead of working.

you can get Noise here:
http://www.blackholemedia.com/noise/

 

[Kyomii]

My favourite is OnyX - does a variety of things as well as cleaning:

http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html

 

[UncSki1218]

keep the posts going ...hopefully we can get a sticky

 

[edgefusion]

I love with a passionate passion "Quickimage CM" it's greeeat!

http://www.pixture.com/macosx.php

 

[lil]

That CoverFlow is amazing! :flower:

Thanks so much for the tip!

There is so much great freeware; but my nod will go to TextWrangler -- an excellent text editor, syntax highlighting, fast scrolling etc.

My kinda app!

Vicky :flower:

 

[jn4jenny]

Definitely Applejack, which I found through this cute little site about good Freeware for Macs:

http://joshuaink.com/blog/400/free-os-x-apps

Also worth checking out:

http://www.coolosxapps.net

 

[Meyvn]

I can't believe no one has mentioned Adium. I could not see myself using any other IM client unless I absolutely needed to have a video conference. Now that it even has file transfer UI, I cannot see a downside. It's the most customizable IM client I've ever used, and it's very stable on the whole. I could not live without at least half of its UI features.

www.adiumx.com

Though I am currently a user of Safari, the browsers Camino, Shiira, and Sunrisebrowser are also great products. If not for the OS integration, I would almost certainly be using Camino or Shiira, and Sunrisebrowser is especially good for developers. Its little "transparency" feature is a neat little novelty, as well.

www.caminobrowser.org

http://hmdt-web.net/shiira/en

www.sunrisebrowser.com

 

[iWhat]

I like Orator, it saves spoken text voices to sound files. It's in beta, and it's free, so grab it now, if it should become shareware.

 

[Meyvn]

I'm really starting to enjoy Quartz Desktop. It allows you to view Quartz Renderings instead of a pic on your desktop.

 

[rs2sensen]

I'm really starting to enjoy Quartz Desktop. It allows you to view Quartz Renderings instead of a pic on your desktop.

yeah, thats a fun little proggy. I show it off to quite a few people. It's takes too much power to be a practical program.