A few days ago, Gina put together a a great list of 20 downloads for folks who opted to wipe their Mac clean when they installed Leopard (guilty). I had a similar idea (I swear) but she very much beat me to the punch. So I’ve put together a list of 40 applications that I find helpful - all of which are free (and of course, work in Leopard). I’ve also included links to tutorials, reviews and overviews for a number of the apps on this list.
General Applications
- AppFresh - keep your applications up to date | tutorial
- AppTrap - helps get rid of all the files when you uninstall a program | tutorial
- Growl - just download it | tutorial
General Internet Applications
- Azureus - everyone has their own favorite bittorrent client, this one is still mine
- Cyberduck - a full featured (and Quicksilver capable) FTP client
- Vienna - if you don’t use Google Reader, give Vienna a shot | review
- Webmailer - lets you click mailto: links and have them open in whatever Web based email service you want (Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail etc) | tutorial
Browsers
- BonEcho - this is my main browser - it’s a custom build of Firefox specifically for Mac users. It crashes way less frequently than Firefox (for me) and runs much faster
- Firefox - see above
- Flock - based on Firefox, just hit v1.0 - think of it as a blogging, multimedia, social networking version of Firefox
- Camino - the other, other OS X browser
- Firefox Addon - Greasemonkey - extends the functionality of Firefox based browsers
- Firefox Addon - Measureit - for web designers/developers it’s a must, otherwise you might not need it
- Firefox Addon - Add to Search Bar - quickly and easily add any site to your Firefox Search Bar | tutorial
- Opera - the other, other, other OS X browser
Graphics
- DropJPG - quickly convert images to jpg
- ImageWell - quickly resize images
- InstantShot! - my screenshot utility of choice
Internet Communication Applications
- Adium - chat on MSN, Yahoo, GTalk, Jabber, etc.
- Colloquy - an IRC client for OS X (and your iPhone/iTouch)
- Google Notifier for Mac - a Gmail/Google Calendar notifier for your menu bar
- Skype - if you don’t know by now..
- Thunderbird - if you don’t use the web interface for gmail/yahoo/whatever, or you don’t love Mail, give Thunderbird a try. From the same folks who brought you Firefox | tutorial
Multimedia
- Divx - the divx codec
- Flip4Mac - play wmv files in Quicktime
- HandBrake - because you should be able to watch your DVDs in whatever format you want
- Max - the best audio converter for OS X
- Miro - watch Internet TV, movies, etc. | overview
- Perian - adds native support for many popular video formats, if you don’t want to install them one by one
- Play - from the same folks who created Max, Play is a media player/alternative to iTunes
- ScrobblePod - if you’re a last.fm user, this lets you scrobble tracks from iTunes and your iPod | overview
- VLC - the media player for OS X
- VLC icons - for making VLC a bit more pretty
Productivity
- Burn - record CDs/DVDs | overview
- iStumbler - makes finding WiFi hotspots a snap | tutorial
- Mozy - backup your files online (and yes that’s my referral link, if you don’t want me to get an extra 256MB of storage, just go to mozy.com and sign up that way) | tutorial
- NeoOffice - because MS Office is meh
- Quicksilver - another one of those “just download it” apps | tutorials
Widgets
- iStat pro - a system status overview is just a Dashboard away.
- Hockey - yeah there are football and baseball versions too, but come on - hockey rules | overview
- RevenuSense - for the AdSense junkies | overview
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