With Last.fm, music fans have found a place to congregate and share musical tastes. The Last.fm player places the “social music revolution” onto your desktop, giving you access to thousands of tracks from all musical genres.

The beauty of the application is that it encourages you to find similar artists to the ones you’re accustomed to and also pushes you to interact with users who share the same tastes. Search results appear as a tag cloud, with the biggest elements being the most popular. With thousands of songs available on Last.fm, it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll listen to the same thing twice. The player is streaming and you’ll have to be connected to the internet and have a Last.fm account for it to work.

Although slightly bulky, the Last.fm player interface is sleek and accessible. We like the shiny control icons and the “now playing” window. This is where you’ll find all artist information like album cover, a small description of the artist, related tags and artists and top listeners. The menu bar on the left includes your recently played tracks, recently loved and recently banned, although to listen to these you’ll need to upgrade your Last.fm account (€2.50/month). The last 10 stations you’ve listened to are automatically saved in your history file.

The social experience is central to Last.fm and becomes pretty addictive. By listening to tracks you create a profile of yourself, the music you listen to and the artists you like. Last.fm then connects you to other users that have similar tastes, whom it calls neighbours. In the Last.fm player, you can connect to neighbours' stations and listen to their tunes. The lists of the friends you made on Last.fm will also appear in your player. If you have the Audioscrobbler plug-in installed, Last.fm can also track all the songs you play in your favourite desktop music app (like iTunes) and connect you with even more neighbours.

Most of us here at Softonic have Last.fm connected all day, simply because it doesn’t require you to have your own music library, it’s free and provides an endless flow of new tunes. In line with modern evolutions in online music, this web music application mixes streaming and social tools to give you an exciting music player. No music fan with access to Internet should be caught dead without it.

Download Last.fm player 1.5.3.45507 in Softonic

grabUp is a preference pane item which allows you to grab any part of your screen and automatically post it online and share with your friends.

Since we had the program page open while we were testing out grabUp we knew that you have to hit CMD + Up + 4 to start capture and then CMD + V to save your image. Although that information is pretty easy to remember it would have been nice to have it in the preference pane menu.

grabUp can be activated from Preferences and will then show up in your menu bar. Clicking on the little icon will bring up a list of latest images. You can't change their names though and will have to remember the date and time at which you took a picture. grabUp automatically displays pictures on the web, with its own url included so sharing with friends is literally just a case of sending over the address. It's a shame that you can't store your images on your drive beforehand though.

grabUp will be of most use to people looking to send over screengrabs via the web. However keep in mind it is limited to basic features.

Download grabUp 1.1.0 in Softonic

Everybody knows that MSN Messenger on Mac is never as polished as it is on the PC. Still, that doesn't mean you should give up chat clients altogether, as the Mac offers excellent alternatives, like Adium X.

This messaging client is the perfect example of an excellent open source program. It's very regularly updated and has a strong and active community. Adium X works with almost all the IM services you'll find out there, including Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger.

The interface is simple yet colorful and multiple chats can be tabbed all into one window. If you want to engage in a private conversation with another user, Adium X support Off The Record (OTR) encrypted messaging.

As I said before, Adium X has generated an active community, which generates all sorts of extras for the client like icons, sounds, plugins or applescripts.

True, file transfer is a little flaky, and Adium X still doesn't offer voice or video chat, but it's very enjoyable to use and extremely flexible.

Adium X is a free and highly customizable IM client, that allows you to connect to almost any online chat service and engage in multiple conversations simultaneously.

Download Adium X 1.3 in Softonic

Following the release of new versions of both Internet Explorer and Firefox, the infamous 'browser wars' are flaring up again. Despite both Firefox 1.5 and the Beta of IE7 making significant strides, it would be be foolish to think this was a two-horse race. While gaining a good reputation with geeks and power users, Opera has long been a bit-part player among the big boys of the browser world. However, if this preview release is anything to go by, the Norwegian-built browser could finally be ready to punch with the heavyweights.

Opera has been pioneering new ways of browsing the web for some time. It has had tabbed browsing since the days before tabbed browsing was cool and developed the innovative 'mouse gestures' control system, where you navigate through the web just by holding the mouse button and flicking your wrist. The developers even dabbled with a multi-pane interface for viewing several pages within one interface.

The good news is that Opera has lost none of its appetite for innovation, and version 9 is packed with new goodies that will have the programmers at Mozilla and Microsoft choking on their doughnuts. For starters the app runs much quicker than the previous release, making it arguably the quickest browser around (except perhaps for Safari) at rendering pages. Incredibly, despite this boost in performance, the program appears to use less memory than version 8.5, making it far less draining on system resources than Firefox and IE.

In terms of features Opera is the gift that keeps on giving. New to the program comes OSX Tiger-style 'widgets', allowing you to check news, convert currency, view the weather and so on through a series of draggable pop-ups which anchor themselves in front of the browser. Although there aren’t many widgets to choose from at present, this is sure to change once the tech-minded Opera fans start developing more.

Another great addition to Opera 9 is BitTorrent support, allowing you to download torrents directly within the browser – a feature that amazingly no one had thought of before. This system works very smoothly, which makes us wonder why RSS feed reading support in Opera is still so poor.

Among the other new treats within the program is a nifty new search feature which lets you add any search engine to the search bar in the main toolbar. This means you can instantly access searches within your favorite online destinations (Softonic, for instance).

Tabbed browsing remains, although some users may be annoyed to discover that Opera has added close tab buttons to the tabs themselves rather than as a separate button. Having said this, the new web page preview thumbnails that appear when you rollover a tab are a real masterstroke. Mouse gestures are still there too, along with the addition of Total Recall-style voice commands – another example of how cutting-edge this browser is.

Opera's developers have been keen to ramp up security features too, and although they aren't highly original, the new content blocking and pop-up blocking functions serve their purpose effectively. What's more, it's refreshing to see a browser that embraces the latest web standards so freely, with the latest release boasting support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 tags.

The browser is remarkably stable and is far better behaved than Internet Explorer 7. Combined with its speed, innovative features and standards support, Opera is undoubtedly web software's best-kept secret, and the final release may prove to be even better than Firefox. Don't say anything though, or everyone will want it.

Download Opera 9.52 in Softonic

Transmission is currently the best torrent client on Mac thanks to a beautiful interface and a simple set of intuitive features.

This new version brings many more improvements to an already solid release. You can set different priority levels for torrents and establish stall limit times. The speed limit mode, represented by a turtle icon at the bottom of the interface, is extremely useful if you're looking to control the amount of bandwidth you use for uploads and downloads.

Transmission has consistently improved over time, offering many more options to view your torrents. You can now filter your torrent list according to downloading, seeding, or paused. The client can also organize transfers by queue order, date added, name, process. Transmission also allows you to label, filter and sort torrents by groups and total activity. You can also encrypt your torrent activity in case you want it to stay private.

We really like the new interface, which blends in perfectly to the new Mac OS X Leopard. Transmission manages to display all the essential information without actually seeming crowded, which is no easy feat. The only little nag we'd have with it is that it doesn't offer as many advanced statistics as you'd find in Azureus.

Despite no advanced statistics, Transmission is a beautiful and incredibly intuitive torrent client for Mac.

Download Transmission 1.33 in Softonic

MacDust is a small and lightweight application designed to clean up your computer. MacDust performs many tasks that could easily take you another five seconds if you weren't using MacDust. The application also removes hard to get at files, and even files you forget about. The Caches folder can get rather large, so using MacDust at least once a week can save you hundreds of megabytes!

Firefox

• Eat (Erase) Cookies
• Erase History
• Erase Download History
• Complete Reset

Safari

• Eat (Erase) Cookies
• Erase History
• Erase Download History
• Complete Reset
• Empty Icon Cache

Camino

• Eat (Erase) Cookies
• Erase History
• Erase Download History
• Complete Reset
• Empty Icon Cache

Chats

• Erase Adium Logs
• Erase Colloquy Logs
• Erase iChat Logs
• Erase Yahoo Logs

Finder

• Empty Caches
• Empty Logs

Torrent

• Remove Azureus Active Torrents
• Remove Azureus Inactive Torrents
• Remove Azureus Logs
• Remove Azureus Temporary Files
• Remove Transmission Torrents

Third Party

• Aquisition Incompletes Cleaning
• ARD Cleaning
• Internet Explorer Cleaning
• XSlimmer History Removal
• YummyFTP Recent Connections Clearing
• DVD Player Cleaning
• Stuffit Deluxe Cleaning
• Warcraft Cleaning

Download MacDust 2.74 in Softonic

AudialHub enters a category which is nothing short of applications, that of sound converters. However since it comes from the people who make the solid visual converters VisualHub and iSquint, we can expect something good.

AudialHub offers the same type of interface and all you need to do is drag and drop your audio files, select what format to convert to, the quality and start the process. Advanced settings give you a chance to play around with things like channel, bitrate and volume and you can even choose to trim the start and end of an audio file.

AudialHub can convert to lossy and lossless audio formats and can be used to burn an MP3 or audio CD. You can monitor the conversion progress from inside the interface or on the Dock icon and even pause and resume during conversion.

The audio converter won't be able to convert DRM protected files and the demo is limited to one minute of conversion.

AudialHub is an intuitive tool to quickly convert audio to the most popular lossy and lossless formats.

Download AudialHub 1.07 in Softonic

One thing's for sure: there's nothing easier than deleting an application on a Mac. Drag and drop it on your Trash icon and it's gone. Or is it really? Actually by doing that you omit to erase certificates and other preference files associated with the program.

A number of developers have picked up on this issue (it's odd that Apple hasn't) and created application that will fully delete all files associate with a program. AppDelete is such an app. Once AppDelete is installed, all you need to do is drag the program you want to remove onto its icon. AppDelete will search for related files (it can take a bit of time) and open up a new window listing them out. You will most commonly find receipts and library preference files. You can uncheck the ones you want to keep in the AppDelete window or remove them all.

AppDelete also lets you keep a log of what you are removing. I suggest doing this just in case you mistakenly remove a file you wanted to keep. You will be able to go back to the AppDelete log anytime you want and quickly see what you accidentally deleted.

Completely free, AppDelete will help you erase applications and all associated files. Good to have.

Download AppDelete 2.0.2 in Softonic

aMSN is an alternative to the classic MSN Messenger, with more features yet a much weaker interface. The chat client looks very similar to Microsoft's product yet differs on a number of points. aMSN developers have delved into the preferences menu, adding extra little features like event alerts and sounds, conferencing support or autoaway messages. Like with MSN Messenger you'll be able to transfer files and organize all your contacts into groups.

Audio/Video support is the number one function that users look for in IM clients nowadays, yet an area which aMSN doesn't particularly focus on. Webcam support is fairly weak and unstable, and instead of integrating into your chat window will open up in a new Quicktime window.

One of the biggest pet peeves of users with aMSN is the interface. It simply doesn't compare with more sleeker, more recent IM clients. To the developer's defense though you can download all sorts of skins from the program's website. Similarly it offers up a range of plugins, to customize your client to your liking. Chat addicts will also appreciate the animated emoticons on hand.

In terms of performance, you have to keep in mind that aMSN is still a Beta product, so still liable to some crashes and bugs. We did have some trouble when opening up new chat window and noticed that the client tended to use a lot of CPU.

In a few words, aMSN is a good alternative to MSN for users looking to add more plugins, skins and delve into the preferences menu.

Download aMSN 0.97 Final 2 in Softonic

With Fluid you can access all your web applications from your desktop.

Ever used Prism or Webrunner? Just like these two applications, Fluid allows you to access all your web apps (like Facebook, Gmail or Campfire) from your desktop. Essentially, Fluid is a simple browser that hosts web applications in a very basic interface. Once you start it up, type the url of your web app in the window, select a name and location, press OK and you're ready to go. The advantage of using it is that you free up your browser for other things. It also uses up very little memory and is very fast.

On the downside, Fluid is in a way like a stripped down browser window. No controls, panel bar or preferences, you only get a browser window for each webapp you launch. This also means that most of the features you take for granted in your browser, such as spell-checking, pop up window management or tabs will not work.

Although it doesn't offer the advanced features of a browser, Fluid is a great tool to access your web apps separately on your Mac desktop.

Download Fluid 0.9.2.5 in Softonic

Customization applications have always been a big hit on Mac, and with the arrival of Leopard a whole range of new Dock and folder appearance applications have popped up. SuperDocker lets you play around with how key functions of Leopard are displayed.

Before taking a look at SuperDocker, I worried that the application was going to be another of the countless Dock modifiers that you find for Leopard. Luckily, SuperDocker not only sticks to that section of your Mac but also lets you modify elements in your Finder, Safari browser, Time Machine and others like iCal, iChat or the capture format. Most of the functions that you can set in SuperDocker are already present in your Mac, but hidden, so having the app is great help to access them quickly. Each setting is easy to work with, and you often only have to choose between whether to display or hide elements. For others, a slider bar lets you easily adjust to the style you like best.

In all, even though you shouldn't expect anything highly advanced, SuperDocker will give you quick access to hidden display options for for your Leopard.

Download SuperDocker 2.5.5 in Softonic

Dragster is an incredibly useful application that takes the drag out of file transfers. Just drag and drop files or folders on Dragster's icon in the Dock, and away they go! Dragster can send files via eMail, upload them to remote servers, copy them to your iDisk, or copy/move files anywhere on your local drives.

Dragster integrates unobtrusively into your Dock, making it instantly available when you need it, and completely out of your way when you don't. Best of all, Dragster lets you set up as many customizable "Shortcuts" as you like, taking the drudgery out repetitive file transfers to the same person or server.

There's also a contextual menu component to Dragster, so you can right-click or control-click a file in any program, and instantly send that file to one of the shortcuts you've set up. It doesn't get any more convenient than that! And of course, Dragster fully supports Bonjour, making file transfers on your local network ridiculously easy.

Dragster isn't simply an FTP client, it supports FTP, SFTP, SCP, SMB (Windows File Sharing), as well as AFP (AppleShare) for file transfers. Best of all, you don't even have to know what protocol to use: simply select "Best Available" and Dragster will figure it out for you! There's also no need to mount servers before uploading files, Dragster takes care of this for you!

Despite Dragster's simple and elegant interface, it has an extremely advanced file transfer engine under the hood that optimizes upload speed, especially for repetitive file transfers to the same location. Dragster also features a full-blown file browser for remote servers, allowing you to navigate through file listings using the same intuitive interface regardless of what protocol you're using.

Already using a program like Transmit, Fetch, or Interarchy for uploading files? No problem, Dragster is meant to complement programs like these, not replace them. Dragster offers you speed and convenience for quick file transfers that is unmatched.

Download Dragster 1.0.6 in Softonic

Pref Setter is the tool you need if you're looking to do anything with your preferences files.

The more applications you install on your Mac, the more preferences files you are collecting. Chances are, you also forget to remove those preferences once you've uninstalled a program. Pref Setter lets you search and view all of your preferences.

Not sure what one preference is? Just press the little info icon at the top of Pref Setter to open up an information window. This will give you both full details and access information.

Pref Setter also lets you launch and quit any preference, and features copy paste functions for quick editing.

Make sure you use it with caution though, as modifying preference files might result in unwanted consequences. You should really only edit a file if you really know what you are doing.

Pref Setter lets you access and edit preferences. Use it with caution though.

Download Pref Setter 2.0 in Softonic

CopyPaste Pro is a powerful clipboard utility for Mac with lots of useful tools to save snippets of text. It also features a unique clip browser interface.

CopyPaste Pro offers much more tools than your basic clipboard tool. To copy text you just have to press CMD+C and type a number for that selection. CMD+V will paste the selction. CopyPaste Pro is accessible from a drop down in the menu bar. You not only have access to clip history, but also to many advanced clip tools. CopyPaste Pro lets you remove quote levels, wrap words and add different date styles among others. Thanks to hovering mini icon, the application is also always accessible.

The clip browser view looks cool, but I didn't find it very intuitive. If you have a lot of elements copied it was a little difficult to browse through them. It also features to sides to the panel, but there is no explaining which element goes on which.

Despite mixed feeling over the clip browser view, I find CopyPaste Pro to be a very powerful clipboard utility with many tools.

Download CopyPaste Pro 1.0.9 in Softonic

So you’ve taken the leap and installed the versatile internet browser, Firefox, but are you ready to trade in your Outlook Express for Mozilla’s open source mail application? Thunderbird is Mozilla’s award winning and free solution to manage your mail more efficiently.

Thunderbird woos users thanks to its flurry of options and the benefits of an open source application. Automatic updates ensure that you have the latest version of Thunderbird, preventing any security threats and offering you new features as soon as they’re available.

The biggest worry for users is switching from one mail application to another and losing precious information. With Thunderbird the switch is painless because you can quickly import your mail and contacts from your Outlook and set up your POP3 or IMAP account is a snap. To stay well organized we suggest taking advantage of Thunderbird’s filters. While this option is nothing new to the experienced Outlook user, you’ll have to admit that Thunderbird makes filters much more accessible, thanks to a simple selection of combinations and actions. Create distinct folders for your personal and professional mail and your newsletters and associate them with filters to avoid the hassle of constantly sorting your mail. Another feature we could single out is the integrated spell checker, a blessing if you send many emails and can’t be bothered to constantly verify your writing.

Although it isn’t visible right away, Thunderbird also features an RSS reader. Handy if you need to follow the news or specialist websites, this tool fits seamlessly into Thunderbird and you could almost forget that it is a mail application. Paste in the RSS feed from your favorite news source and the main messages window will reveal a list of all the latest feeds. The message pane is used as an integrated browser window to display the selected article.

Email is the number one source of viruses, that’s why Thunderbird offers various levels of message encryption, a spam filter and support for valid certificates. We found the spam filter particularly effective. Set it to “learn” mode, and it teaches itself to separate the valid email from the rest of the junk. You have to be mindful of this option though, because Thunderbird can become too restrictive and may decide on its own that one of your friends is suddenly persona non grata. Reviewing your junk folder every now and then should avoid you accidentally losing friends. Thunderbird also automatically turns off Javascript and by default does not load remote images, a good way to defuse the risk of viruses from dodgy emails.

Another known feature of the Mozilla line of products is customization. Just as with Firefox, Thunderbird can integrate a slew of extensions and add-ons to rev up your inbox. You can also add or remove icons from the actions pane, selecting the ones you use most frequently.

The one place where Thunderbird fails, and professionals will confirm this, is the failure to integrate Microsoft Exchange support. An essential tool in any work environment, the collaborative messaging software is sorely missed in Thunderbird and seriously limits its usefulness in offices. Furthermore, we can question why Mozilla included an RSS reader yet failed to incorporate a calendar, standard in most mail applications nowadays.

While the lack of proper business minded features will limit Thunderbird’s point in the workplace, the simplicity, customizability and security make it a number one choice for home users. If you’re worried about your safety on the Internet or are just looking for a more efficient way of handling your mail, Thunderbird is probably the best solution out there.

Download Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.16 in Softonic

Imagine Poker is a configurable Texas Hold 'Em game that allows you to play in a poker tournament against 16 iconic characters from history, fantasy, legend, and fairy tales: the Abominable Snowman, Abraham Lincoln, Blackbeard, Cleopatra, Dracula, Joseph Stalin, Julius Caesar, Little Red Riding Hood, Merlin the Wizard, the Mona Lisa, Napoleon, Neptune, Rendlesham the Alien, Robin Hood, the Tooth Fairy, and the Wicked Witch.

Characters blink, smile, get angry, and even cry. By using over a dozen attributes unique to each character, it was possible to bring these figures to life and build each with his/her own poker playing styles. The fun begins when you sit down and try to win the tournament. To succeed, you will have to defeat them all!

In Imagine Poker you can choose your Texas Hold 'Em tournament among Limit, Pot Limit, and No Limit, and also manipulate the blind bets as you like. Other options at your command include sound effects, speech commentary, the style of deck, game speed, and more. If you want to focus on your own game and not on the other characters, or if you just want to speed things up, simply turn on the "Fast-Forward" option and the game will jump to the next hand every time you fold.

Download Imagine Poker 3.6 in Softonic

Flow is a smart new FTP client for transferring files built specifically to use the new features found in Leopard.

The applications supports FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, .Mac and local connections and lets you carry out multiple transfers at once. Although it doesn't offer tabbed views, which I find absolutely necessary when working with different connections at once, it uses QuickLook to visualize files quickly in your Finder.

The interface is clean and simple, giving you the transfer rate for each file and a little progress bar to let you know has much has been uploaded/ downloaded. Programmers will enjoy having a built-in editor to modify code

The best feature of Flow surely is dropmarks. After creating a droplet in Flow, all you'll have to do is drag any file onto it to transfer it. Easy as pie!

Although it doesn't offer tabbed views, Flow is a smart new FTP client that makes great use of Leopard technology. Dropmarks are an excellent way of transferring files.

Download Flow 1.0.3 in Softonic

iHook is a graphical frontend for any commandline executable. It gives scripts a pleasant Aqua face, and allows script writers to provide graphical feedback without having to learn one of the higher APIs available for Mac OS X.

iHook accomplishes this through its ability to understand a set of directives. When a script writes an iHook Directive to stdout, iHook will modify its own interface based on the content of the Directive. A simple shell script can have an Aqua interface, complete with a progress bar and drawer.

When launched in the Finder, iHook prompts the user to choose a script to run; iHook also accepts file drops on its icon, and will attempt to run the dropped file. iHook is also highly useful as an interface for Mac OS X LogoutHooks.

Download iHook 1.1.0 in Softonic

Contrary to popular belief, uninstalling applications on a Mac doesn't just reside in trashing a file. You often need to check into the library and also remove application support and cache files. An uninstaller like AppCleaner will make sure all unwanted files are removed.

Appcleaner features simple drop and uninstall, like other uninstallers but also lets you browse through your programs, divided in applications widgets and others. This last one I really like as it shows all your plugins and components, which you normally have to go digging for in your library. Note that it will also take care of caches and receipts.

Appcleaner includes a search function to find applications faster, and I liked having the SmartDelete feature which will detect and trash related items. You can protect launched and default apps and 3D transitions and choose other ones you don't want to delete.

The only drawback in my opinion is the uninstall process, where you first have to search for the program, then uninstall it.

Apart from this minor issue, I think Appcleaner is an excellent uninstaller with both protection and smart removal, and surprisingly it's free! A must.

Download AppCleaner 1.2.1 in Softonic

Mac Pilot will allow you to supercharge your Mac by tweaking more than 225 hidden features.

The application allows you to activate or deactivate features in all of your Mac's applications, like the Finder, Spotlight or Photo Booth. You can also view the settings for the different volumes mounted on your Mac, set applications to start up at login, manage power usage or lock specific files.

Activating a feature simply is a case of checking a box and luckily, every feature is explained so that you know what you are doing. If there is a feature that you feel is missing you can always suggest it to Koingosw, the developer.

Although Mac Pilot is easy to work with, we recommend using it only if you know what you are doing. It's very easy to start checking and unchecking features until you've forgotten what you've changed. Luckily, you can verify the logs in the program to verify all the changes you performed.

If you use Mac Pilot in a responsible way, you'll be able to tweak features in your Mac and improve how it performs.

Download Mac Pilot 3.1 in Softonic