Great Mac Freeware Programs

So as some of you know, I work as tech support for the College Writing Program at Berkeley. Our department is all Macintosh, so finding good software can sometimes be expense. Fortunately, there are a number of sites that list freeware Mac programs. One of the ones I like is FreeMacWare, a blog spotlighting free Mac Programs. They’re also having a contest where you write about five apps you’ve found on their site. I was able to find some good programs including:

  • Firefox– It’s not as good as it is on the PC, but it has the best web compatiblity with web sites and the extensions can’t be beat.
  • VLC– Quicktime can’t open every video file, so it’s up to VLC to do the job. And a heck of a job it does.
  • Witch– Command + tab and Expose are great, but I think Witch is better. I like being able to cycle through all of my windows, even the minimized ones, which is what Witch allows me to do (among other things).
  • Mactracker– I can look up the technical specs for any Mac model possible. Very useful.
  • Nvu– Why pay so much for Dreamweaver when I can get WYSIWIG and CSS editing for free? And it’s pretty good code too.

I like a variety of other programs too, but these have been the most useful for me so far.