Fantastic, Free Software.
01/08/06 20:38
This page is not completed but I have it posted because
it offers some great information even in it's
unfinished state.
Freeware and Open Source are different but similar. Head over to this Wikipedia description which elaborates on the topic if you care to hear the nuances, they explain it better than I can. The end result is that developers of both Freeware and Open Source are truly amazing. People devote their time and talent to create some wonderful applications. I want to in showcase some stellar Free applications which I use daily, and pay some respect to those and their efforts for their creations.
This list is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all Macintosh Freeware and Open Source software, but the ones which I have found to be the best for me after evaluating many options. If this list makes you aware of, or helps you decide on the right one for you, fantastic.
Office Suite
NeoOffice
I use Microsoft Office 2003 for Windows all day long at work.. and I love it. Sure there are specific things I don't care for, but all in all it is a fantastic suite of Office programs.
At home on my iMac I have the occasional use for Office programs, but not enough to justify paying for Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac. OpenOffice is a viable alternative, but it is still an X11 application and I don't like running X11 apps if at all possible. Enter NeoOffice, which is basically Open Office for Mac without going through X11. And as of today, August 1, 2006 it is available with a new Aqua interface which makes it much more Mac like. There are also icon sets which can be loaded which are much more visually appealing than the standard icons it ships with.
Somewhere or another I read that Open Office is going to go native on the Mac and no longer require X11, this will probably mean the end of NeoOffice. The end result is good for Mac users. No idea what the ETA is for naitive OO or if it's in fact true, but I'll happily use NeoOffice in the mean time.
FTP
There are three Open Source FTP applications that I am aware of.
FUGU
Fugu is actually currently only Secure FTP, SFTP, but is going to add FTP in the future. I really like that Fugu has dual pane view - meaning that you see your local drive in the left window, and the remote connected server in the right window. This is very easy and efficient for me. Unfortunately the FTP servers I connect to are not SFTP so I currently can't use Fugu.
OneButton FTP
OneButton FTP is a very young product with a lot of promise. I love it's clean layout and very stable performance. I find that it needs a little more to make it functional for me. For example there are no back/forward buttons, and clicking on ".." doesn't take you to the parent directory - so if you drill down to a subfolder you can't go back. I take it that this program will improve and may quickly be my main FTP app. OneButton only supports single pane view.
CyberDuck FTP
CyberDuck, very cool name. Full featured FTP and SFTP client with all the bells and whistles but I find it to be a bit buggy and prone to crash. Despite its relative instability this is my main FTP app, at least until OneButton FTP beefs up features a little more. CyberDuck only supports single pane view.
CD/DVD Burning
Burn
Roxio's Toast Titanium is the gold standard for ease of burning data. There is a fabulous Open Source application available, Burn. It doens't do everything that Toast does feature for feature, but I can honestly say that it does everything I would use in Toast except for being able to make Menu's for Video DVD's, and this is feature is currently in development. Save your $100 that Toast would cost you and give Burn a try!
Audio
Audacity
Audacity is a multiplatform OpenSource audio appliacation that is raelly nice. It is still a PPC app as of today, but there is a working Intel build available if you're on a newer Intel Mac.
Web Browser
Camino
In researching the different browsers and poking around the web, I've seen that people are very passionate about their chosen browser. I've give all mainstream Mac browsers a try and without a doubt Camino is my favorite. I have to say that OmniWeb is very interesting but I still prefer Camino. Camino's look, feel, and integration to the Mac is far and above the other options - even Safari in my opinion. When Leopard is unveiled I assume it will have Safari 3, and I'll certainly look into it and see if it will win me over, until then I'll happily continue to use Camino.
Graphics
Seashore
PhotoShop is the standard program, but I just don't use an application like this very often, and the price of PhotoShop or even PhotoShop Elements is far more than I could stomach for the occasional needs that I have of this type of program. The Gimp is a PhotoShop knockoff available on multiple platforms and on the Mac it runs via X11. It's a bit clunky and more powerful than I really need. Thankfully there is a wonder Open Source Cocoa app on the Mac, SeaShore, which is aiming to bring the function of The Gimp to a true Mac application instead of something that runs under X11 and doens't look like a Mac app. SeaShore is early in development but already has most all the functions of PhotoShop that I need, it looks great and is very small at under 5 megs, in comparison The Gimp is I think 125 megs.
BitTorrent
Transmission
Transmission is a great bittorrent client. It has a clean design while conveying a lot of information. It is very actively developed and I'm sure will continue to get better and better.
DMG
FreeDMG
DMG's are great disk images on the Mac, and very useful but unfortunately to create a DMG isn't as simple as it should be. FreeDMG makes it about as easy as you could imagine and it's Open Source to boot! I even made a little Automator workflow to take Finder items and open with FreeDMG, so I can have a file(s)/folder(s) selected, right click and select Automator, and then FreeDMG and the workflow passes those items to FreeDMG and the DMG is automatically created for me. FreeDMG doesn't currently have more creative features available like using a custom icon or background image but for a basic DMG creator it's solid.
FTP Server
PureFTPd Manager
The Mac ships with an FTP server, but there is no GUI to setup and monitor it. Note: This is an area on the Mac which I find frustrating, OS X includes an FTP and HTTP server but they are very much unsupported by Apple, you as the end user are forced to venture out onto the web and figure out what needs to be done, and how to do it. Apple should include something like PureFTPd, a great FTP server GUI interface, as well as something similar for HTTP.
MegaZoomer
Desktop Manager
Dockless
Growl
Special Mention: QuickSilver
MenuMeters
Uno
ClamXav
Flip4Mac WMV
Handbrake
Gizmo Project
MacPAR deluxe
NuFile
Split&Concat
Stuffit Expander
WhatSize
Chax
Freeware and Open Source are different but similar. Head over to this Wikipedia description which elaborates on the topic if you care to hear the nuances, they explain it better than I can. The end result is that developers of both Freeware and Open Source are truly amazing. People devote their time and talent to create some wonderful applications. I want to in showcase some stellar Free applications which I use daily, and pay some respect to those and their efforts for their creations.
This list is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all Macintosh Freeware and Open Source software, but the ones which I have found to be the best for me after evaluating many options. If this list makes you aware of, or helps you decide on the right one for you, fantastic.
Office Suite
NeoOffice
I use Microsoft Office 2003 for Windows all day long at work.. and I love it. Sure there are specific things I don't care for, but all in all it is a fantastic suite of Office programs.
At home on my iMac I have the occasional use for Office programs, but not enough to justify paying for Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac. OpenOffice is a viable alternative, but it is still an X11 application and I don't like running X11 apps if at all possible. Enter NeoOffice, which is basically Open Office for Mac without going through X11. And as of today, August 1, 2006 it is available with a new Aqua interface which makes it much more Mac like. There are also icon sets which can be loaded which are much more visually appealing than the standard icons it ships with.
Somewhere or another I read that Open Office is going to go native on the Mac and no longer require X11, this will probably mean the end of NeoOffice. The end result is good for Mac users. No idea what the ETA is for naitive OO or if it's in fact true, but I'll happily use NeoOffice in the mean time.
FTP
There are three Open Source FTP applications that I am aware of.
FUGU
Fugu is actually currently only Secure FTP, SFTP, but is going to add FTP in the future. I really like that Fugu has dual pane view - meaning that you see your local drive in the left window, and the remote connected server in the right window. This is very easy and efficient for me. Unfortunately the FTP servers I connect to are not SFTP so I currently can't use Fugu.
OneButton FTP
OneButton FTP is a very young product with a lot of promise. I love it's clean layout and very stable performance. I find that it needs a little more to make it functional for me. For example there are no back/forward buttons, and clicking on ".." doesn't take you to the parent directory - so if you drill down to a subfolder you can't go back. I take it that this program will improve and may quickly be my main FTP app. OneButton only supports single pane view.
CyberDuck FTP
CyberDuck, very cool name. Full featured FTP and SFTP client with all the bells and whistles but I find it to be a bit buggy and prone to crash. Despite its relative instability this is my main FTP app, at least until OneButton FTP beefs up features a little more. CyberDuck only supports single pane view.
CD/DVD Burning
Burn
Roxio's Toast Titanium is the gold standard for ease of burning data. There is a fabulous Open Source application available, Burn. It doens't do everything that Toast does feature for feature, but I can honestly say that it does everything I would use in Toast except for being able to make Menu's for Video DVD's, and this is feature is currently in development. Save your $100 that Toast would cost you and give Burn a try!
Audio
Audacity
Audacity is a multiplatform OpenSource audio appliacation that is raelly nice. It is still a PPC app as of today, but there is a working Intel build available if you're on a newer Intel Mac.
Web Browser
Camino
In researching the different browsers and poking around the web, I've seen that people are very passionate about their chosen browser. I've give all mainstream Mac browsers a try and without a doubt Camino is my favorite. I have to say that OmniWeb is very interesting but I still prefer Camino. Camino's look, feel, and integration to the Mac is far and above the other options - even Safari in my opinion. When Leopard is unveiled I assume it will have Safari 3, and I'll certainly look into it and see if it will win me over, until then I'll happily continue to use Camino.
Graphics
Seashore
PhotoShop is the standard program, but I just don't use an application like this very often, and the price of PhotoShop or even PhotoShop Elements is far more than I could stomach for the occasional needs that I have of this type of program. The Gimp is a PhotoShop knockoff available on multiple platforms and on the Mac it runs via X11. It's a bit clunky and more powerful than I really need. Thankfully there is a wonder Open Source Cocoa app on the Mac, SeaShore, which is aiming to bring the function of The Gimp to a true Mac application instead of something that runs under X11 and doens't look like a Mac app. SeaShore is early in development but already has most all the functions of PhotoShop that I need, it looks great and is very small at under 5 megs, in comparison The Gimp is I think 125 megs.
BitTorrent
Transmission
Transmission is a great bittorrent client. It has a clean design while conveying a lot of information. It is very actively developed and I'm sure will continue to get better and better.
DMG
FreeDMG
DMG's are great disk images on the Mac, and very useful but unfortunately to create a DMG isn't as simple as it should be. FreeDMG makes it about as easy as you could imagine and it's Open Source to boot! I even made a little Automator workflow to take Finder items and open with FreeDMG, so I can have a file(s)/folder(s) selected, right click and select Automator, and then FreeDMG and the workflow passes those items to FreeDMG and the DMG is automatically created for me. FreeDMG doesn't currently have more creative features available like using a custom icon or background image but for a basic DMG creator it's solid.
FTP Server
PureFTPd Manager
The Mac ships with an FTP server, but there is no GUI to setup and monitor it. Note: This is an area on the Mac which I find frustrating, OS X includes an FTP and HTTP server but they are very much unsupported by Apple, you as the end user are forced to venture out onto the web and figure out what needs to be done, and how to do it. Apple should include something like PureFTPd, a great FTP server GUI interface, as well as something similar for HTTP.
MegaZoomer
Desktop Manager
Dockless
Growl
Special Mention: QuickSilver
MenuMeters
Uno
ClamXav
Flip4Mac WMV
Handbrake
Gizmo Project
MacPAR deluxe
NuFile
Split&Concat
Stuffit Expander
WhatSize
Chax