“ Everything was created by an all- powerful and all- knowing being who exists outside of space and time. This being impregnated a human woman through non- physical means and was born as her offspring. Within space and time, the being was executed as…

anyhow, you forgot mactheripper, burn, little snitch, neooffice (more for mac), caffeine, appzapper (not free but great app), cog, come on man!!!!

They come in different styles and features. Some of the best alarm

Even though most of your commenters here think this is a software war or comparison of software features, I think I am one of two or 3 people who read this article understand it is only about “free” or insanely cheap software for the new mac user and nothing more. This is a very good list of free software programs that simply work for zero cash out of pocket.

For the rest of the apparently uneducated commenter, free does not mean “best” nor does it imply “best for everyone”, it simply means it works, and its free. I think Andrew you knew this and expected your readership to understand this as well, but alas…..

VLC always felt a little run down to me. I always liked MPlayer and recently have been sticking to using Perian Codec with either Quicktime (now that it has fullscreen for free) or Niceplayer. Perian really made a huge difference for me because it allowed all those file formats not to just be playable, but usable in iMovie and other “Quicktime based” applications.

This is a decent list and I can understand including Firefox, Open Office and Thunderbird as they will be familiar to many geek converts which will make the transition easier. I’ve found for regular computer users (ones that just want to get online and check email and write up a few docs), most of the built in apps work best for them due to the “just works” factor.

Again, the premise of this write up is a short list to give new users switching to the mac platform from the PC world a quick list of software that will help them ease into their new digs without them having to spend a dime.

As for FTP, I think Coda is great for web developers in general.

This is a nice list, but if you want to find a comprehensive list of all apps for a particular category, you should go to http://www.pure-mac.com

If you’re looking for all open source and freeware apps go to http://www.freemacware.com/

And finally, if you want to read some irritating columnists, go here: http://mac360.com/

Who pays for a media player, DVD ripping software, bit torrent software or even anti-virus on a mac?

At a loss for content are we?

1) Firefox is EASILY the 4th best browser. It’s behind 3 others that are free…Omniweb (’buy me’ nag window), Camino, and Safari
2) Thunderbird isn’t as good as Mail. Not even close. Where does the $50 savings come from?
3) Cyberduck has NEVER been good. I would rather pay for Transmit than get use this free client.
12) .rar? Please. Even if you use the .rar format, Unarchiver is much better than UnRarX

Firefox theme’s truly are based on personal taste, or lack there of. I prefer the base Firefox theme, however, I know far too many people who completely love some of the most hideous themes known to mankind. But to them, they’re visually appealing…appalling to the rest of us.

I would like to correct that with this: “thousands of appalling themes”

The statement above is purely my opinion. But, if you look you’ll only find that Aronnax’s themes and a few others available at Firefox’s theme repository is visually appealing. There’s Netscape’s and that 20% more-pinstripe theme(somewhere online) . I’ve looked through alot of the themes available on the official Firefox themepage and there aren’t thousands of themes that works fullt on the Mac. And those that claim to work, well.. leave them be. They have either WindowsXP foldericons in the bookmarksmenu or other things wrong with them that simply does not match the OS X experience.

The Firefox team should have left OS X alone or built Firefox from the ground up for OS X.

Your mileage may vary of course. I’m just saying. You’re better off with Camino as your regular Mozilla browser than Firefox if you can live without the Extension feature. Plus, Camino has better themes available for it, IMO.

The only thing I use VLC for these days are movies that has subtitles for them. Some doesn’t always work with QuickTime. I use Perian & Flip4Mac with QuickTime and it works beautifully.

While Mail is a nice app, I would hardly consider it “full-feature”, not when compared to Thunderbird or Entourage. Mail is leaner most definitely, but on an enterprise level Mail is not going to be your solution.

I do strongly agree with CyberDuck being a better client, especially since Transmit weights in at $29.95 more then we want to spend. Managing an IT department and outfitting hundreds of computers, that’s an instant savings of over $2,400 with a volume license. To any employers eyes, that’s better.

As for VLC, I do believe the first point made is it’s ability to play virtually any file. Not to mention interlacing and post processing.

David, thanks for the NeoOffice tip, I’ll have to look into it as I’m not the largest fan of the OpenOffice build.

In the end whatever works best for you is best, we’re just bringing valid options to the table. I personally use Microsoft Office, CS3, Apple Remote Desktop and a huge list of other pricey software because they’re better. But if you don’t have the money to spend…

Firefox vs Safari is largely a personal issue: I prefer Safari because it’s leaner, cleaner and faster on my machine — I couldn’t care less about a zillion plug-ins. I use Firefox occasionally for Safari-incompatible sites, and the update installer doesn’t even work.

Thunderbird vs Mail: how in the world is that a $50 savings? Last time I checked, Mail was free with OS X. Again, I find Mail leaner, cleaner and elegant. I tried Thunderbird, and while it’s not bad, I don’t see why I would switch from Mail (whose spam filtering works great for me).

Cyberduck: it’s a nice product, and I’m glad it’s free, but “a better product”? Than Transmit, you mean? Again, that’s purely a personal choice.

VLC vs QuickTime: In my opinion, VLC’s strength it not full screen playback, it’s that it reads a zillion video formats.

Etc, etc.

Also, there’s a good few programs that I’ve bought to replace these apps because, quite simply, they were worth the money. Transmit is by far the best FTP program out there, bar none (I mainly use Coda now, but that has transmit built in). iWork is the best productivity suite on os x, in my not-so-humble opinion. I prefer Safari and Mail over Firefox and Thunderbird, but that’s just personal preference. But the fact that there’s better shareware software doesn’t take away from the quality of the programs on this list, as they will serve their purpose perfectly for many people.

Of course it does RAR files but a whole slew of other formats as well. Plus, it’s fast, just like using the built-in Archive Extractor in OS X. Double-click an archive, it’s extracted. Simple as that!

I’d include a link, but I don’t wanna seem like a spammer. Just Google it. First link.