Free Software for Mac users

Free and open-source software is good for you and good for the world. This is the best Mac software that we know of.

Web Browsing

firefox

Mozilla Firefox

The premier free, open-source browser. Tabs, pop-up blocking, themes, and extensions. Considered by many to be the world’s best browser.
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camino

Camino

Based on the same Mozilla foundation as Firefox, Camino is a more native OS X app. Fast and simple.
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Video Player / Video Podcasting

miro

Miro

Beautiful interface. Plays any video type (much more than quicktime). Subscribe to video RSS, download, and watch all in one. Torrent support. Search and download from YouTube and others.
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IM – Instant Messaging

adium

Adium

Connect to multiple IM accounts simultaneously in a single app, including: AOL IM, MSN, and Jabber. Beautiful, themable interface.
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Application Launching

quicksilver

Quicksilver

Quicksilver lets you start applications (and do just about everything) with a few quick taps of your fingers. Warning: start using Quicksilver and you won’t be able to imagine using a Mac without it.
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Software packs

MacLibre

MacLibre

Installs a pack of great open source apps (including many on this page) and keeps them updated for you.
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Email

thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird

Powerful spam filtering, solid interface, and all the features you need.
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Utilities

The Unarchiver

The Unarchiver

Uncompress RAR, 7zip, tar, and bz2 files on your Mac. Many new Mac users will be puzzled the first time they download a RAR file. Do them a favor and download UnRarX for them!
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RSS

vienna

Vienna

Very nice, native RSS client.
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rssowl

RSSOwl

Solid cross-platform RSS client.
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Peer-to-Peer Filesharing

cabos icon

Cabos

A simple, easy to use filesharing program. Gnutella network.
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transmission icon

Transmission

Very nice torrent downloader.
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Running Windows Software on Macs

Q

Q Emulator

Run Windows programs on your Intel Mac at near native speed. Works on G4 / G5 Macs too, but much slower.
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Podcasting

juice

Juice

Solid podcasting client.
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Video Playback

VLC

VLC

Plays more video files than most players: Quicktime, AVI, DIVX, OGG, and more. Pretty good interface.
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MPlayer

MPlayer

The interface and buttons are not as nice or as Mac-like in feel, but it may play even more video files than VLC.
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MPlayer

Perian

A plugin that allows quicktime to play additional video formats. (Included in Democracy Player.)
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iPod Ripping

senuti icon

Senuti

Get music off of your iPod onto any computer.
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iPodDisk

iPodDisk

Copy music off your iPod in the finder, like a regular disk drive.
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DVD Ripping

handbrake icon

Handbrake

DVD ripper and MPEG-4 / H.264 encoding. Very simple to use.
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CD / DVD Burning

handbrake icon

Burn

CD and DVD Burner. Burn any video to a disc that plays in your DVD player!
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Privacy

vidalia

Vidalia

This TOR frontend keeps you anonymous on the web using military-grade techniques. For use with Firefox see: TorButton.
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Word Processing / Office Suites

bean

Bean

Very fast and easy to use word processor. Live word count, autosaving, more.
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neo office

NeoOffice

Built on OpenOffice.org. Big, full featured suite of tools for word processing and spreadsheets. Compatible with Microsoft Word documents and OpenDocument Format.
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abiword

AbiWord

A word processor. Leaner and quicker than OpenOffice. Compatible with Microsoft Word documents and OpenDocument Format.
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Wifi Scanning

kismac

KisMac

The best wireless scanner for Mac. Find wireless access when you’re on the go.
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Sound Recording

audacity

Audacity

Simple sound recording tool.
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Graphics, Photo, Publishing

seashore

Seashore

Based on Gimp, but doesn’t require X11.
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seashore

Xee

Fast image viewer and image browser.
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gimp

Gimp.app

Photo editing application that rivals Photoshop in features (requires X11).
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inkscape

Inkscape

Vector graphics application (requires X11).
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scribus

Scribus

Desktop publishing. Complicated install, but a nice app.
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FTP / SFTP

cyberduck

Cyberduck

Very good all-around ftp program.
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onebutton ftp

OneButton FTP

Simple, fast FTP, with a focus on “advanced queuing”.
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fugu

Fugu

Not as polished as Cyberduck (and only for SFTP) but has a side by side interface showing your files and the remote files.
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HTML / Text Editing

smultron

Smultron

Text / html editor. Integrates with Cyberduck for editing websites.
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NVU

Nvu

Visual tool for making websites (WYSIWYG html editor), comparable to Dreamweaver.
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IRC

colloquy

Colloquy

Great IRC client.
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