Since April 2008 I am a happy owner and user of a MacBook. In fact, I had already considered earlier to switch from MS Windows to Mac OS X, but when I asked at the Gravis Apple store close to my office in Essen about availability of additional software tools for Apple, they told me: "Yes, sure, there are many productivity tools, like PhotoShop, Office etc.". In fact, that was not what I was thinking about. I was looking for the little programs at low or better no cost, which make day-to-day work with the computer more fun.

Well, there are plenty. Probably not as many as for MS Windows, but almost every possible task is covered - and often the Mac programs do the job better than their Windows counterparts.

Below you find a list which I compiled after working with my MacBook for 8 months and updated thince then a few times. Those, applications, which I tested but threw out again (or those, which I installed but did not yet test sufficiently), are not included. Standard programs for the Mac that are pre-installed (like iTunes, Mail etc.) are also not included. BTW, the table is sortable into both directions, just click into any header cell.

Name Type Description Also under
Windows		 Evaluation
7zX Open Source file compression/decompression + ****
Adobe Golive 9 commercial web editor - you can find cheap licenses under eBay. Not maintained by Adobe any more. + ****
AllBookmarks freeware combines the bookmarks from Safari and Firefox - but not from Opera - ****
Amaya Open Source WYSIWYG web authoring tool by the W3C + ****
Avidemux Open Source video editor + ****
BookPedia shareware content-rich database for books, with linkage to Amazon etc. - *****
CDPedia shareware content-rich database for music CDs, with linkage to Amazon etc. - *****
Clips shareware clipboard manager - of all the new programs I tested recently (for instance from MacHeist bundles) this one is of real use for me - *****
Compozer Open Source HTML Editor, based on Nvu + ***
Dropbox free for file space of 2 GB utility for synchronizing files between computers + *****
DVDPedia shareware content-rich database for DVDs, with linkage to Amazon etc. - *****
EarthDesk shareware screen background, showing earths illumination and current cloud cover + ****
eReader freeware e-book reader for files in Palm Doc format (*.pdb) - ***
FileZilla Open Source famous FTP client, also common for Windows + ****
Firefox Open Source in my view the very best web browser + *****
Flip4Mac freeware player for music files in WMV format, required for Wradio - *****
Forklift shareware excellent file manager with ftp-capability, I use it parallel with Pathfinder - *****
Google Earth freeware do I need to explain further? + *****
Graphic Converter shareware more than the name suggests, it has plenty of image editing options - ****
iWOW shareware sound improver for iTunes - ****
Last.fm freeware shows online information for any music played on iTunes + ****
Max Open Source CD ripper and music file converter, useful if you need mp3s and do not want to concentrate on iTunes only - ****
Missing Sync for Palm OS commercial as the name says - ****
Missing Sync for Windows Mobile commercial as the name says - ****
Movist Open Source video player with nice interface - I use it now instead of VLC - *****
NetViewsWire freeware excellent news (RSS) reader - *****
OpenOffice.org Open Source now in version 3.x fully OS X + ****
Opera freeware web browser - but I am already quite happy with Safari and Firefox + ****
Path Finder shareware finally an excellent file manager - perhaps even better than Total Commander for Windows - *****
PDF Clerk Pro shareware for editing the sequence of pages in a PDF file, works also well for huge documents - *****
Photostickies freeware puts webcam images and photos on your screen - *****
Phoenix Slides freeware fast image viewer, for whole directories - ****
Picasa Web Albums Uploader freeware only upload, no editing as with the Windows version + ***
Quantum GIS Open Source very good (but not yet perfect) Geographic Information System, continuously improved, with many interesting plug-ins... Similar as under Windows. + ****
RealPlayer freeware I dislike RealPlayer, but need it to play those music samples on Amazon + ***
SimpleMovieX shareware program for detecting ads /cutting video files, very easy use - ****
SimplyBurns Open Source interface to copy CDs and DVDs - *****
Skim Open Source excellent and fast PDF-Viewer - for most purposes better than Adobe Acrobat Reader - *****
Smultron Open Source powerful code editor, a little bit like Notepad++ for Windows - ****
Skype freeware do I need to explain further? but always a few steps behind the Windows versions + *****
Speed Download 5 shareware download manager - *****
SplashID shareware password organisation for mobile and desktop computers + *****
SplashPhoto shareware photo album organisation for mobile and desktop computers + ****
SplashShopper shareware shopping list organisation for mobile and desktop computers + *****
Stanza freeware e-book reader and converter for many file formats including MobiPocket (without DRM management) + ***
Songbird Open Source audio-player and play-lister with many add-ons - I use it now instead of iTunes + *****
Toomble Open Source download and convert videos from Youtube + *****
TrueCrypt Open Source file and drive encryption + *****
Tunnelblick Open Source OpenVPN client for Mac OS X - ***
TV-Browser Open Source TV and radio programme + ****
VLC Open Source multimedia player + *****
Vmware Fusion commercial virtualization software, to install any alternative OS on your Mac - *****
Yojimbo shareware organiser for any kind of information, notes, bookmarks etc. - *****

status: 13.03.2010

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