10 Essential FREE Mac Applications

Mozilla FireFox

This is a great browser and the most viable alternative to Safari. It's fast secure and compatible with all the latest web standards and technologies. The browser wars are hotting up again but for the moment Firefox still has the edge over the competition on the Macintosh platform.

Mozilla are keen to point out the active security features such as anti-phishing and anti-malware software built in to it as well as all the customisation features. You'll find the sheer number of add-ons, themes and plug-ins mind boggling as this is without a doubt the most customisable browser on any platform. You can find out more about this heavy weight browser by clicking the link below.
Download page.

VLC media Player

If you intend to download and watch videos from the web and expect them to play on your Mac you'll need VLC. Unlike so many other media players it is completely independant of QuickTime and plays all major formats. Most noticable and the most common incompatability that Mac users will encounter are movie files encoded with AC3 sound, a format that QuickTime doesnt yet support, despite its popularity. Also its a Windows world and and there is so much content encoded WMV and WMA (the Windows media format) which VLC has no problem playing.

VLC also plays DVDs and has a neat feature in which it bypass those annoying copyright messages at the start of the disc and goes traight to the main menu.
Download page.

VirtualBox

Migrating from one operating system to another can be a pain and you may find that there are a few applications and utilities you can't live without once you've moved over to Mac OS X. VirtualBox lets you run other operating systems such as Windows and Linux on your Mac! Its easy to set up and stable.

bear in mind you will need a copy of the operating system that you want to run and the only down side to this programme is that it only runs on Intel based Macs.
Download page.

Adium

"The one ring to rule them all!" Here's a solution for managing all your Instant Manager accounts all from one handy application. Adium handles Google, AOL, MSN, ICQ and manymore. It's has many customisable features, skins, icons and sounds.

The only noticable down side is that Adium doesn't currently support video chat but if this isn't a critical feature you require then this handy app will more than do the job. Like Firefox it has many extentions and themes to download and customise Adium to suit your needs and style tastes.
Download page.

OpenOffice

We may not spend a lot of time editing spreadsheets and word processing but when we do it helps if the software we use can edit Microsoft Office documents and save in the MS Office formats. This makes it easy to share documents with friends, family and colleagues at work.

OpenOffice gives you Microsoft Office compatibility and all the features you could need for a home or small office without a price tag.
Download page.

GIMP

If you need retouch your photos or try your hand at digital manipulation of your images Gimp is a great option. It is generally scene as the open source equivalent to Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop is a very expensive application and its worth trying out Gimp first.

Gimp supports all the common file formats such as Gif, Jpeg, Tiff an Photoshop PSD and also supports plug-ins so you can extend its capabilitlites by browsing the Gimp homepage where you will find lots of plug-ins, scripts and sample files to get you creating your own digital master pieces.
Download page.

Handbrake

When it comes to DVD Rippers, you will not beat Handbrake for simplicity and ease-of-use! It's fast stable and is easy to get to grips with. If you want to rip DVDs for viewing on your iPod/ iPhone or Apple TV it has presets built-in for this.

Handbrake exports in all the main vdeo formats: MP4, MKV, AVI or OGM and has some greataudio track options such as the ability to put both the main audio track and the directors comentry in to your exported files.
Download page.

Stuffit Expander

In the good old days of OS 9 the .sit file format was the standard of choice for archiving and compressing files on the Mac and Stuffit Expander was the free utility of choice to expand them. When Mac OS X was released it came with a built in ability to compress files in the .zip format and stuffit expander was no longer needed as much. How ever if you need a utility to decompresss archives of all types from many different platforms stuffit expander proves to be as usefull as ever.

There if you find you need a utility to compress files the commercial version allows you to compress files in a wide range of formats.
Download page.

Miro

Itunes is a great solution for managing your media for your iPod or iPhone but it can be found wanting when if you listen to a lot of podcasts and videos and require more powerfull organisationa and managment tools, Miro is a perfect solution. You will not have to worry about video formats as Miro plays many formats including some that QuickTime does not. Miro now supports Torrent files and allows you to watch Bittorrent files while they download!

miro has a huge number of built in channel for you to browse and boasts the largest single collection of free HD content.
Download page.

Thunderbird

Another invaluable piece of software from Mozilla for handling your emails, Thunderbird is an outstanding product with many features and is a worthy alternative to Apple Mail.

Thunderbird will keep you secure from phishing attacks and has great features to help you filter and sort through you emails. Like Firefox it also has themes and extentions avaible to download from mozilla web site.
Download page.