“Apple provides plenty of free software to get you started with a new Mac,” Tony Smith reports for The Register. “But there are some gaps, and a number of the firm’s own freebies have been improved upon by some equally inexpensive alternatives. Here, then, is our selection of the ten apps you should download onto every new Mac you buy.”
Ten free apps to install on every new Mac:
• Adium
• Skype
• VLC
• Squared 5 MPEG Streamclip
• Monolingual
• OmniGroup OmniDiskSweeper
• TinkerTool
• Burn
• Stuffit Expander
• Carbon Copy Cloner
Full article, with description of and links to the apps featured above, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
MenuMeters should head this list.
Don’t forget Click2Flash… At least until Flash is completely gone!!
Handbrake?
I think the unarchiver should be there instead of Stuffit
Unarchiver > Stuffit
SuperDuper is better than Carbon Copy Cloner!
Adium
AppFresh
Burn
Caffeine
Google Notifier
Onyx
Skype
Unarchiver
VLC
Perian
SuperDuper is better than Carbon Copy Cloner!
———————–
Agreed.
@Ricardo Governa
I’m with ya there!
I myself have never had any luck with CCC or SD.
Agreed, Stuffit can do exactly that
Paid SuperDuper! supporter and no regrets. If you have only 1 startup disk, then look for AppleJack (free).
Stuffit Expander? What planet is he on?
Not even going to bother with the rest of the list, if he’s that far out of touch with reality.
8 more…
Transmission
UnRarX
Bean
Dropbox
Find Any File
iStumbler
SoundSource
Cyberduck
InsomniaX
NTFS 3G
Blackra1n
PwnageTool
iStumbler is one that anyone running a wireless router should have. All routers from from the factory set to channel 1, 6, or 11. Most of my neighbors have went out and bought routers, come home and plug them in, and wonder why their internet is slow while I get 25 – 30mb download from the same company.
Use iStumbler to check the channel settings of all of the wifi’s in your area, then set your router to a channel that isn’t being used. You’ll double your internet speed in 5 minutes of effort.
@Gabriel: Stuffit does handle a wider variety of Archive types than the built-in archive utility and you can set it to automatically delete archives upon expansion thus saving a step.
I actually find CCC much better than SuperDuper. But I’d pay to get rid of the ridiculous adverts.
Flip4mac
Perian
MacTheRipper ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
Perian
QuickSilver
YASU
+1 QuickSilver
DVD Imager
Firefox
Google Earth
NeoOffice
TextWrangler
I use both Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper, depending; they each have dramatic strengths and weaknesses.
Using Movist now over VLC, except for DVD playback. Why is it the Apple’s DVD player is the only program that can truly crash my Mac?
YASU and QuickSilver
You will find a few hundred extra apps at http://www.thefreemac.com to add to the lists above.
From a teacher’s point of view, XLOGO, Sketchup, VLC, Scratch, MPEGStreamClip and OpenOffice are a must.
I loaded monolingual on my MBP when it had leopard and it really wreaked havoc… a lot of apps wouldn’t run because they needed some language fonts that I deleted.
Has anyone had a problem with snow leopard?
thanks,
tom