What are some “must have” Mac OS X programs?

2 revs, 2 users 91%
Williham Totland

2 revs, 2 users 91% Williham Totland · Answer 1 · 2009-09-25 03:05:46Z

up vote 94 down vote

Can't believe it hasn't been said:

VLC

(The it-just-works free open-source media player)

edited Sep 25 '09 at 3:05

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8

suggest adding a brief description – Jason S Jul 15 '09 at 13:50

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DVD / media player – harriyott Jul 15 '09 at 20:37

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Sub-par? It's horrible! I would have to be one of the worst UIs i have ever used – joshhunt Jul 18 '09 at 14:44

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It plays almost everything without the need to download additional codecs. I think that makes up for the UI, or lack thereof. Plus you might be watching in full screen, in that case, the UI doesn't matter much as the floaty HUD is comparable to iTunes/QuickTime. – huyqt Jul 21 '09 at 16:10

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@joshhunt: Worst UI? How's that? I have no problem with it. Please elaborate. – Bryan Mar 27 at 18:57

2 revs, 2 users 56%
Jonik

2 revs, 2 users 56% Jonik · Answer 2 · 2009-07-22 14:00:33Z

up vote 93 down vote

Growl for notifications

edited Jul 22 '09 at 14:00

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17

Am I the only person who thought that Growl essentially provides a Mac equivalent of those little yellow bubbles in Windows that pop up every few minutes and ruin you life? Maybe I was just running apps which abused it but it lasted less than an hour before I uninstalled it. – JonHopkins Jul 24 '09 at 8:13

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I find it incredibly useful - I've always felt that the infrastructure should be built in. – Rich Bradshaw Aug 23 '09 at 7:52

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Maybe Windows is missing the filter option. In Growl one can exclude applications from using it. – Arjan Aug 23 '09 at 9:49

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Found it distracting as hell, got rid of it. – cust0s Sep 4 '09 at 12:09

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Growl is nice because you can filter which things notify you. – epochwolf Nov 3 '09 at 21:58

Ryan O · Answer 3 · 2009-07-15 13:21:35Z

up vote 90 down vote

Quicksilver will make your computing experience much more friction free. I rarely use its more advanced features, but it's worth it if only for the ability to launch applications without mousing.

answered Jul 15 '09 at 13:21

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Ryan O

2

This needs to be #1. – theycallmemorty Jul 15 '09 at 15:07

35

I'm a relatively recent mac convert, but I find spotlight to do most of what other people use quicksilver for. What am I missing? – Barry Jul 15 '09 at 23:13

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I like QSB better. I was developed by the same guy but has a better folder navigation. I like gnome-do ( QuickSilver clone ) a bit more because it has more plugins. At least that's my perception. – Oscar Reyes Jul 16 '09 at 22:16

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I use Launchbar, but it's the same thing. Launchbar is not free tho, but I find it way more stable than quicksilver. – Martin Marconcini Jul 23 '09 at 16:22

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Yes, I don't use it anymore as -it doesn't work on SL and -Spotlight does everything that it does for me. Its too heavy-duty. – Mk12 Oct 16 '09 at 20:56

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rjmunro · Answer 4 · 2009-07-17 13:07:42Z

up vote 76 down vote

I use Adium for all my instant messaging needs - MSN, Yahoo, AIM, FaceBook, Google Talk / Jabber and local bonjour chats.

answered Jul 17 '09 at 13:07

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rjmunro

3 revs, 2 users 80%
bjtitus

3 revs, 2 users 80% bjtitus · Answer 5 · 2009-08-07 07:16:01Z

up vote 75 down vote

TextMate - A wonderfully powerful and simple text editor.

edited Aug 7 '09 at 7:16

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7

TextMate actually annoys me more often than not. For me, the fatal flaw is that it won't inform you when an open file has been changed by another app (for example, SVN updates, tweaks in other editors, etc.) and allows you to overwrite the changes. This has irked me countless times. Xcode, SubEthaEdit, and even Eclipse handle this. (Also, I wouldn't call TextMate "simple" by any stretch.) – Quinn Taylor Aug 7 '09 at 7:15

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Quinn: I don't know, it DOES inform me when I do that and asks me, if I want to change it to the new version. Right now, I did that. "The file for the document at /Volumes/LaCie Disk/fsdfds.txt has been modified by another application. There are also unsaved changes in TextMate. Do you want to keep the TextMate version or revert to the version on disk?" – Karel Bílek Sep 29 '09 at 23:47

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Grant Heaslip · Answer 6 · 2009-07-19 23:13:54Z

Dropbox (cross-platform) automatically uploads every file in a certain folder to a secure server. Everything in this folder is automatically (and nearly instantly) synchronized to all of your computers, and you can set up certain folders within the folder to share with other Dropbox users (great for collaboration). It's also naturally great for a supplemental offsite backup of important files.

Stewart Johnson · Answer 7 · 2009-07-15 12:34:57Z

up vote 63 down vote

Perian to get Quicktime to play everything.

answered Jul 15 '09 at 12:34

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Stewart Johnson

fretje · Answer 8 · 2009-07-16 12:10:44Z

up vote 62 down vote

Firefox of course!

answered Jul 16 '09 at 12:10

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fretje

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Definitely. Even though I like Safari 4 and its speed, Firefox still has many things Safari doesn't, like some great extensions or the intelligent (learning) address bar autocomplete. – Jonik Jul 22 '09 at 13:51

Ben · Answer 9 · 2009-07-15 15:03:22Z

up vote 58 down vote

MacPorts is like apt-get for OS X - lots of free, great open source software with minimal hassle.

answered Jul 15 '09 at 15:03

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Ben

12

Fink is more like apt-get, MacPorts is like, well, ports (from the BSDs). – dmckee Jul 26 '09 at 16:39

3 revs, 2 users 80%
John McC

Mark Thalman · Answer 10 · 2009-07-28 13:03:53Z

Apple's Developer Tools (XCode, Interface Builder, iPhone Simulator, etc...) is the first thing I install, being a developer a machine without these is pretty much useless. A free registration is required to download the latest version. I believe that the first version is bundled on the OS Install CD. I'm not sure if it's on the installers that come with new Macs.

3 revs, 2 users 80% John McC · Answer 11 · 2010-07-10 15:28:17Z

up vote 51 down vote

VMWare Fusion - you can have your cake and eat it. Not only does it let you have Windows/Linux on your machine, there's lots of trial stuff showing up as live CD's or VM's. Get plenty of RAM.

edited Jul 10 at 15:28

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1

I think I know what you mean, even though I had difficulty parsing "Have can you cake and eat it." :) – Jonik Jul 28 '09 at 13:18

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Plus if you "are a PC" AND a Mac, you can run Windows in a Boot Camp partition, but still launch that partition as a VM while running a Mac, giving you even more flexibility. In other words, you can have a pure Windows environment by booting into it, or you can pop into the same Windows session as if it were a VM from within the Mac OS. Fusion is excellent at making this seamless. – Ken Pespisa Aug 28 '09 at 13:32

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Stewart Johnson · Answer 12 · 2009-07-15 12:33:56Z

up vote 41 down vote

Flip4Mac to play WMV files.

answered Jul 15 '09 at 12:33

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Stewart Johnson

Stewart Johnson · Answer 13 · 2009-07-15 12:36:07Z

up vote 40 down vote

1Password to manage all your passwords.

answered Jul 15 '09 at 12:36

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Stewart Johnson

Warren Pena · Answer 14 · 2009-07-16 23:05:32Z

up vote 32 down vote

I'm a big fan of iStat Menus. It lets you put all sorts of interesting stuff in your menu bar, like CPU, RAM, and Network utilization. It also makes the clock highly customizable, and lets you add a calendar to its on-click menu. Super convenient.

answered Jul 16 '09 at 23:05

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Warren Pena

3

I prefer MenuMeters. – porneL Sep 2 '09 at 1:28

Vandelizer · Answer 15 · 2009-07-27 04:13:11Z

up vote 31 down vote

Transmission - Open source torrent client.

answered Jul 27 '09 at 4:13

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Vandelizer

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better than utorrent? Opera? – Yar Aug 25 '09 at 9:04

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@Yar: IMHO yes. It's fast, lightweight but has all needed features. Opera is too light on features and Mac uTorrent feels like unpolished Transmission :) – porneL Sep 2 '09 at 1:30

5 revs, 3 users 47%
Panagiotis Korros

redacted · Answer 16 · 2009-07-16 14:29:22Z

MacVim is a great GUI vim, I switched to it from Textmate. Amazingly customisable, powerful editor. As a plus, vim/vi is installed on every linux/unix machine so you won't be lost on other computers (this is part of the reason I switched from Textmate, too much hassle working on remote machines at work).

5 revs, 3 users 47% Panagiotis Korros · Answer 17 · 2010-07-10 17:09:06Z

up vote 29 down vote

Google Chrome of course!

edited Jul 10 at 17:09

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Peter Hoven · Answer 18 · 2009-08-04 22:46:20Z

up vote 25 down vote

AppCleaner

This will help you get rid of all the other apps people are suggesting.

answered Aug 4 '09 at 22:46

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Peter Hoven

2

Highly recommended. Stays out of the way until the time you remove an app. There are some improvements that could be made, but overall it's an excellent utility. Especially considering that it's free :-) – Antonis Lamnatos Aug 21 '09 at 8:35

Paidhi · Answer 19 · 2009-07-22 17:39:25Z

Since it hasn't been mentioned here yet:

Little Snitch is one of two applications I install as very first after every fresh MacOS installation. It allows you to watch and control all outgoing network connections. The MacOS firewall (GUI) deals only with incoming connections (unless you want to dig deeper under the hood and work with ipfw).

The second application is the great LaunchBar. Both tools are worth every cent.

If you want to get some ideas of useful and popular MacOS software check out IUseThis.

Jason · Answer 20 · 2009-07-24 02:47:41Z

up vote 21 down vote

SuperDuper! - You never know when you'll need it

answered Jul 24 '09 at 2:47

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Jason

5

What does it do? – rjmunro Aug 18 '09 at 17:15

2

SuperDuper makes a clone of your hard disk as a way to backup. From the website "it makes creating a fully bootable backup painless" – Jason Aug 31 '09 at 17:39

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Jonik · Answer 21 · 2009-07-22 13:59:58Z

up vote 19 down vote

Things, for task management.

It's a commercial app, and not even very cheap ($49.95 or €37.40), but I've come to rely on it a lot. The UI strikes a nice balance between simplicity and functionality. Especially when using the Mac application in combination with the iPhone version (with quick wifi sync), it's just great!

answered Jul 22 '09 at 13:59

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Jonik

1

Great UI, it's a pleasure to use. As soon as they release a version with full .Mac sync I can ditch OmniFocus – username Jul 22 '09 at 21:23

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If you upvoted this, also consider superuser.com/questions/2278/must-have-iphone-applications/… on "Must-have iPhone apps" question :) – Jonik Jul 23 '09 at 7:47

rjmunro · Answer 22 · 2009-07-17 13:19:05Z

up vote 18 down vote

VirtualBox for running windows or Linux virtual machines. Like VMWare but free.

answered Jul 17 '09 at 13:19

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rjmunro

3 revs dex · Answer 23 · 2009-07-22 21:59:35Z

up vote 18 down vote

NTFS-3G (with MacFUSE) - NTFS Driver to allow read/write access to any NTFS formated drive

edited Jul 22 '09 at 21:59

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3 revs
dex

1

It's worth point out that it's very slow read/write access, even slower for reads than the native read-only driver. Accessing NTFS disks via a Windows VM is much faster, althouhg much more inconvenient too. – coxymla Sep 11 '09 at 7:50

Bryson · Answer 24 · 2009-07-15 13:06:35Z

up vote 17 down vote

If you're a cheap web developer like me, I always install this pair of apps:

Cyberduck, a free FTP program
Smultron, a free, lightweight text editor

Both do the job well. Of course, if you can, I'd suggest buying a better web development program, such as Coda.

answered Jul 15 '09 at 13:06

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Bryson

4

Espresso is another good web IDE, and TextMate is another good editor. – jtbandes Jul 15 '09 at 22:19

4

Could you split these into separate posts? – Jonik Jul 22 '09 at 17:10

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+1 for Cyberduck. – Ioxp Jul 29 '09 at 19:53

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2 revs Maximilian · Answer 25 · 2009-07-15 12:39:53Z

up vote 15 down vote

smcFanControl on my MB Pro. The thing get's way to hot otherwise even though the fans are perfectly capable of cooling down to really nice temperature.

edited Jul 15 '09 at 12:39

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2 revs
Maximilian

5

smcFanControl2 supersedes it. Why isn't this included in the OS? – Jared Updike Jul 15 '09 at 20:49

Sam · Answer 26 · 2009-08-05 20:55:58Z

up vote 15 down vote

For light web development work, Coda.

answered Aug 5 '09 at 20:55

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Sam

Avi Flax · Answer 27 · 2009-07-15 13:31:58Z

up vote 13 down vote

Fluid lets you create SSBs, site-specific-browsers, so, for example, any web apps you use frequently can be their own apps — frequent uses are Gmail, Google Docs, Google Reader, etc.

answered Jul 15 '09 at 13:31

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Avi Flax

skarin · Answer 28 · 2009-07-15 14:57:55Z

up vote 13 down vote

The Hit List - Super Awesome Task/GTD program

answered Jul 15 '09 at 14:57

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skarin

2

I prefer it to Things as it is a little more "free form" and you can bend it to your usage patters much easier. I've tried Things & Omnifocus and left both for The Hit List and have kept at it, which never happened in the past. – skarin Jul 16 '09 at 14:34

docgnome · Answer 29 · 2009-07-23 02:17:10Z

up vote 13 down vote

Either Carbon Emacs or Emacs-app from MacPorts.

answered Jul 23 '09 at 2:17

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docgnome

1

i don't like aquamacs, it has to many idiosyncrasies... I prefer straight forward gnu-emacs – Brian Postow Apr 16 at 15:34