Everybody likes free software. And that includes Mac users. I mean, face it. Mac users already spend a tidy sum of money on our Macs. We don’t have to fork over a bunch of dough for software, too. Do we?
In this compilation, I have gathered a list of my top picks for free software for Mac OS X.
NOTE: Windows Users, I just published my top 65 list of free software for Windows. If you’re looking for Windows software, check that out.
Adium
Adium is a free, multi-protocol instant messaging client. Connects with AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, etc. Awesome program.
Appfresh
AppFresh helps you to keep all applications, widgets, preference panes and application plugins installed on your Mac up to date. All from one place, easy to use and fully integrated into Mac OS X.
Audacity
A fairly advanced, free audio editing tool. Available for both Windows and Mac OS X. Great if you want an alternative to GarageBand.
Bean
Bean is a small, easy-to-use word processor (or more precisely, a rich text editor), designed to make writing convenient, efficient and comfortable.
Blender
A very powerful 3D animation suite.
Buddi
A free personal finance and budgeting program.
Colloquy
An advanced IRC client for OS X. Advanced scripting, styling capabilities. My personal choice.
CamTwist
CamTwist is a software package that lets you add special effects to your video chats. It’s also possible to stream your desktop and still images. With CamTwist, you can also use multiple video chat programs at the same time. We use this program for our live stream for PCMech LIVE.
CronniX
Provides a GUI frontend to the CRON system for scheduled tasks on the Mac.
CyberDuck
One of the most popular, free FTP clients for the Mac.
DejaMenu
DejaMenu will display the current application’s main menu as a context menu when a key combination is pressed. Invaluable when using multiple screens on the Mac.
DeskLickr
Change your desktop wallpaper using images from Flickr.
Disk Inventory X
Disk Inventory X is a disk usage utility for Mac OS X 10.3 (and later). It shows the sizes of files and folders in a special graphical way called “treemaps”.
Evernote
Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.
ffmpegX
An excellent utility for converting videos from one format to another.
Filezilla
Excellent FTP program.
Firefox
You likely know about it and love it. But, I do, too. The best web browser out there.
Flip4Mac
From Microsoft, allows WMV files to play in QuickTime Player.
Flock
Another web browser based on Firefox, but with a lot of social media functionality included.
Freemind
A free mind-mapping application. An innovative application for note taking and outlining. Takes time to get used to, but some people swear by it.
GIMP
Photo editing application that rivals Photoshop in features.
Google Earth
The 3D map of the world that just gets better and better…and creepier. Total must-have.
Handbrake
DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter.
iBackup
iBackup is a simple to use backup/restore utility. Supports scheduled backups of files, folders and applications. Further, it uses plugins to backup your settings. It is also able to backup Application Settings
iGTD
An advanced task management program based on the Getting Things Done system.
iStat
With 8 separate and highly configurable menu extras, iStat menus will let you know exactly what’s going on inside your Mac.
Inkscape
Vector graphics application. Can be a little complicated, but its pretty powerful.
Juice
Want to listen to internet audio programs but can’t when they are scheduled? This program lets you create your own custom online audio anytime, anywhere. Really.
LineIn
LineIn is a simple application for OS X to enable the soft playthru of audio from input devices. Routes audio from one source to another.
MAMP
An extremely quick and easy way to set up a Mac, Apache, MySQL, PHP server on your Mac for local development work.
Miro
Beautiful interface. Plays any video type (much more than windows media player). Subscribe to video RSS, download, and watch all in one. Torrent support. Search and download from YouTube and others.
Mozilla Thunderbird
Fantastic email client and Outlook alternative. Powerful spam filtering, solid interface, and all the features you need.
NeoOffice
A full, open source office quite based on OpenOffice.org.
Nvu
A full, WYSIWYG web editor available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.
OpenOffice.org
Big, full featured suite of tools for word processing and spreadsheets. Compatible with and a free replacement for Microsoft Word documents. Also supports OpenDocument Format.
Opera
Opera is a fantastic web browser with many legs up on Firefox, just without all the plug-ins.
Quicksilver
Puts control of OS X into your hands via the keyboard. A program launcher, but much more. Takes some getting used to, but many Mac users couldn’t live without it.
Scribus
Desktop publishing application with a lot of powerful features.
Seashore
Seashore is an open source image editor for Mac OS X’s Cocoa framework. It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing. It is based around the GIMP’s technology and uses the same native file format.
Skitch
A great application for quickly snapping and editing screenshots and uploading to the Internet. Very handy for bloggers.
Skype
Free, voice-over IP service and application. For internet-based phone calls.
Smultron
A great, advanced text editor for OS X. Great for advanced editing and scripting. My personal choice.
SoundFlower
An audio routing application, acting as a virtual sound driver which you can then route other audio to. Extremely useful when doing anything with audio mixing on your Mac.
TextWrangler
TextWrangler is the powerful general purpose text editor, and Unix and server administrator’s tool.
Tomato Torrent
A simple program for downloading torrents.
TweetDeck
A Twitter client based on Adobe AIR. Perfect for users of Twitter.
Twirl
twhirl is a desktop client for the Twitter microblogging platform, powered by Adobe AIR.
Ventrilo
Voice over (VOIP) group communications software. We use this on PCMech LIVE.
VirtualBox
Free, open source way to create virtual machines on your computer.
VLC
Plays more video files than most players: Quicktime, AVI, DIVX, OGG, and more. Pretty good interface.
David Risley is the founder of PCMech.com. He is the brains, the thinker, the writer, the nerd.
