Comments on: Freeware alternatives for that Mac shareware

By: Todd

Todd — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:23:18 +0000

This has a ridiculous collection of free applications that all work very well. Maybe it is beyond basic for this group, but I was surprised it was never mentioned. I think all the apps you have presented up there should be submitted to opensourcemac.

Thanks for the great article (almost two years later)

By: Unfortunate

Unfortunate — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:10:15 +0000

You should have done a little more research on ShapeShifter and ThemeChanger; ThemeChanger is a vastly inferior, outdated product with far fewer themes to choose from.

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 23:23:07 +0000

Great! Thank you

By: tmerritt530

tmerritt530 — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 23:33:50 +0000

I like delicious library because of the scanner. I scanned all my movies and systematically made a mess looking for more stuff to scan. I have a lot of games and music so I liked having them in there too.

By: virginia jones

virginia jones — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:58:53 +0000

I see no mention here of FreeMacWare.com which as its name implies is all of the things you say you want. It will even send you a daily e-mail if asked. I have picked up wonderful stuff here from the beautiful Stellarium to dead.licious which will periodically notify me and/or clear out no longer valid bookmarking sites.

By: cinematze. » Blog Archive » Rise and shine

cinematze. » Blog Archive » Rise and shine — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:48:36 +0000

[...] ist seit heute Schluss. Dank Aurora, der kleinen, feinen Applikation, die ich hier entdeckt habe. Auf Anhieb mit den richtigen Songs zur richtigen Zeit geweckt, angenehmes Crescendo inklusive. So [...]

By: Zach

Zach — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 15:38:14 +0000

Interarchy, eh? Never heard of it. I’ll have to check out it. For now I am all about Cyberduck FTW!

By: Ankur

Ankur — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 10:23:32 +0000

An excellent list. Some of these are excellent alternatives.

The one thing that I do miss though, is Interarchy. We need a good free FTP app!

By: Keenan

Keenan — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 06:03:47 +0000

Hey, great article! I’d heard of/used most of these apps, and it’s great to see them finally get some recognition. Appzapper in particular has brainwashed so many people considering that Appdelete is just as good.

In the Disco/Burn section you mentioned that you burned movies that you’d handbraked to DVD. I was wondering how you converted the handbraked movie (mp4 usually, right?) into a format that is watchable on DVD players. Thanks so much.

-Keenan

By: Zach

Zach — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 05:16:40 +0000

Thanks a lot Shaun. Glad we could help!

By: Shaun

Shaun — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 04:04:06 +0000

sexcellent article my friend. i’ve been looking for a reasonable free alarm clock app for ages. and i had never even heard of a Schoolhouse-like app before, going to give that a shot this week. thanks a bunch!

By: Kyle

Kyle — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 00:11:24 +0000

To be fair, your comparison of ThemeChanger and ShapeShifter isn’t really justified.

There are a few themes still released in .dlta format but it’s very rare, as ThemeChanger introduces some extra limitations to OS X theming, namely not allowing extra menu customisation nor alternative text colours.

Also, ShapeShifter offers a lot more functionality, such as multiple application skins and easy updatability of themes. as well as Core Image based manipulation of themes to make colour variants.

Normally I’m all for free, and tend to use installer-based themes such as Uno or SmoothStripes myself but if anyone wants to use one of the awesome themes released since 10.4 they’re pretty much going to have to get ShapeShifter.

By: jhn

jhn — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 16:48:47 +0000

All that the so-called “uninstallers” do is use Spotlight to search for the application name. You don’t need software for that. For the most part, you don’t even need to bother. A few K of plain text preference files aren’t going to hurt you. Deleting the application itself is really all you need to do, which is why that’s all that Apple tells you to do.

By: Zach

Zach — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 05:45:43 +0000

@Nate: Great list. I was really close to adding Q to replace Parallels, but I kept it out. Supporting shareware is a great thing to do, but getting the name of those little developers out there is awesome.

By: Nate

Nate — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 04:28:47 +0000

very nice [in borat's voice]

Some more to add:

Smultron to replace TextMate
Acqlite to replace Acquisition
Books/GlobalBooks to replace Delicious Library (Books)
Carbon Copy Cloner/Netrestore to replace SuperDuper!
Q to replace Parallels

[note I use both Smultron and Textmate, Acqlite, Delicious and DVDpedia, SuperDuper, and Parallels]

Remember to support your shareware apps too!

Nate

PS Great site:
http://www.freemacware.com/