HistoryHound lets you do a fast keyword search on the entire content of all web pages and RSS feeds you've visited recently, plus all those that you've bookmarked. It's a "personal web search." Just type in a few keywords and HistoryHound gives you a list of pages you've viewed recently, ranked by relevance.

Have you ever tried to find something in your browser history or bookmarks, but couldn't quite remember when or where you saw it? Or perhaps you've got your bookmarks meticulously organized, but it takes forever to mouse through the menus to get to something you want? HistoryHound will chase down the page for you - fast!

Powered by Mac OS X's "SearchKit" search technology for fast searching, HistoryHound scans your browser's cache, history, and bookmarks periodically to keep its search index up to date. It also includes a built-in browser based on WebKit, the same engine that's inside Safari, so your search results are rendered quickly and accurately. A number of different options make HistoryHound convenient and fast to use, and the fully-functional demo runs for 30 days with no limitations.

Download HistoryHound 1.9.5 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 9.6 in Softonic

Sometimes Newton's Law of Inertia is just as applicable to the digital world as to the physical. All too often our files sit around never to be filed. Downloads and other sundry files pile up never to leave. Fortunately, an uncluttered desktop can be a reality.

Meet Hazel, your personal housekeeper.

Hazel works on whatever folders you tell it to, automatically organizing your files according to the rules you create. It features a rule interface similar to that of Apple Mail so you should feel right at home. Have Hazel move files around based on name, date, what site/email address it came from (Safari and Mail only) and much more. Keep your downloads off the desktop and put them where they need to be.

Hazel can open, archive, set color labels and add Spotlight comments. And in Hazel 2, you can now have Hazel rename your files or sort them into subfolders based on name, date or whatever combination of attributes you choose. Hazel 2 gives you the ability to create even more powerful workflows than ever before.

Download Hazel 2.2.2 in Softonic

Saft is a plugin to boost the features in your Safari browser.

Considering the amount of things you can actually do with Saft, it's almost difficult not seeing it as a full fledged application rather than a simple plugin. And effectively, Saft is a little bulkier than most plugins, but it really does enhance the performances of your Safari browser.

Saft includes an ad blocker, which you'll be able to customize, setting things like blocking by URL pattern, images, animations or plugins. You can create shortcuts for all the sites you visit most often, associating them with a word or even a simple abbreviation, which you'll be able to type in the URL bar. Saft is also a very powerful tool in terms of tab management. You can bookmark a group of tabs, drag tab buttons, change the tab order and search in tabs. Saft also includes Growl support and one page PDF export.

You'll have to pay $12 for the plugin, which not everybody will be willing to do, since in a browser like Firefox you can find similar plugins for free. Another drawback for users is a confusing developer page. It's not clear what the latest version is or where to download the plugin from.

Despite a confusing developer homepage, Saft is a plugin which will boost your Safari with advanced ad blocking, tab management and shortcut creation.

Download Saft 10.5.2 in Softonic

The application serves up a scrumptious mix of maintenance tools and interface tweaks, all accessible via a comprehensive graphical interface and toolset. It is a smooth and powerful utility that simplifies the use of advanced UNIX functions.

Disks

• Enable or disable journaling

• Repair disk permissions

• Set disk spindown time

System

• Prebind/re-prebind the entire system or selected folder

• Run cron scripts

• Change startup mode

• Modify sleep settings for portable computers

• Force empty trash

• Rebuild Launch Services database

• Update whatis and locate databases

Files

• Delete locked or inaccessible items

• Delete invisible DS Store files

• Clean system, user and Internet caches

• View, rotate, print and save logs

• Create symbolic links

• Recreate Mac OS 9 Desktop alias

• Lock or unlock files and folders

Network

• Change speed, duplex and MTU

• Optimize network settings for eight most common connections or apply the custom optimization

• Configure the built-in Mac OS X file server

Interface

• Customize look and features of Finder, Dock and login window

• Change screenshot file format

• Set window resize speed

• Modify hidden settings of Exposé, Mail, Safari and other applications

Pilot

• Easily optimize your system

• Schedule maintenance tasks

Download Cocktail 4.1.5 in Softonic

The Glims plugin was built to add a few more extra features to your Safari browser.

It will essentially expand the functionalities of the browser's search tool, like adding a thumbnail next to search results or adding the search engine name in the search box. Glims comes with a large list of search engines, which you can rearrange at will and select from a drop down in the search box. It includes less conventional search engines like Facebook, MTV or Expedia among other more known choices.

Glims will also allow you to display link and search word suggestions. These will appear in a black bubble under your search box. I quite liked this tool and found it very useful.

The thumbnail feature was the only one not to work properly, as not only did I find that it slowed my browser, but the thumbnails themselves did not display properly.

Find the search feature in Safari a little dull? Glims should definitely spice things up a bit.

Download Glims for Safari 1.0 Beta 8 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 3.01 in Softonic

Worried how long your kids are spending on the internet? Well Watcher can help you by setting-up clear boundaries between your children and their computer.

Watcher allows you to introduce time-limits on internet activity including surfing, messaging and even playing games. Simply input start and end times from Monday to Friday and at weekends and Watcher will do the rest. You can also fix time-limits if, for instance, you don't want your kids to be using the computer before school. Disk limits of your choice also ensure only a defined amount of space is ever available.

Best of all is the Dashboard widget which sets up a credit system for children to negotiate how they want to spend their total hours of computer access across the week. Instant statistics then give you immediate access to the past day's, week's or month's activity.

Watcher is a well-designed program that offers parents real peace of mind. The only problem is that your children might not be too happy.

Download Watcher 5.0 in Softonic

Cooliris delivers an immersive, full-screen experience for viewing images on the web. If you have an online photo account and if you use iPhoto and Safari, or if you enjoy photography, his is the program for you.

Currently Supported Sites:

• Flickr
• Photobucket
• Facebook
• Google Image Search
• Yahoo Image Search
• Ask.com Image Search

The free Cooliris plug-in enables you to:

• View photos in full screen with a single click
• Glide between photos from within full screen mode
• Play a slideshow of image search results and photo albums
• Browse online photos with your Apple® remote

Download CoolIris 1.8.0.4273 in Softonic

Have you ever wanted to keep a video you find on the web and play it on your iPod?

If so, you'll enjoy Cosmopod. This effective little plugin lets you download and convert web videos in seconds. The addon supports all sorts of web formats, including FLV and Divx and can convert them into high quality iPod-ready videos thanks to H.264 and MPEG4 encoding. You can even drag and drop videos from your Mac and convert them with Cosmopod.

The plugin features an embedded player, so you can preview your encoded video and make sure it's what you want and that the quality is OK. Although it's a shame that Cosmopod only works with Safari, the plugin integrates perfectly with the Apple browser, thanks to a cleverly designed interface. You can also activate Growl support to get notified when conversions are finished.

Cosmopod is a little Safari plugin that will allow you to download any encode any web video to an iPod ready format.

Download CosmoPod 2.7 in Softonic

The Sogudi plugin for Safari lets you create shortcuts for complicated urls. Instead of typing a full address, you can create a shortcut of only a few words.

The thing with that Sogudi is that it's not limited to creating shortcuts for websites. If you type in your shortcut (such as goo for Google) then type in any search term, you can actually use it like a normal search tool.

Obviously if you've already added your favorite search engines to the Safari search box, you may find it of little utility. However, you have to think that Sogudi does not limit you to these search engines but also lets you search any site you want to.

Although installation was quick, I did need a bit of time getting used to the process of adding bookmarks. It's a good thing that Sogudi includes preset shortcuts to help you get started.

Sogudi, by letting you create simple shortcuts for url, can make for a good complement for your Safari browser. This one's for productivity geeks!

Download Sogudi 0.46 in Softonic

Get Tube is yet another YouTube video downloader with which you can get and store any clip from the famous video sharing site.

Get Tube lets you save videos in four different formats (mp4, mov, mp3, avi). The download process itself is a little unintuitive: not only does it only work with Firefox or Safari, but you also need to have one of the browsers open to a video to be able to download. Downloading with Get Tube can take a little while, but you'll be able to follow the whole operation thanks to a process bar.

Get Tube won't work if there are multiple videos opened up in the browser. Similarly try to avoid having multiple tabs opened as to seems to confuse the program.

Get Tube lets you select the folder to which you'll save videos, although the default is normally your download folder.

As to image and sound quality, you'll find they are exactly the same as you would have online.

Although a little counter-intuitive, Get Tube is a handy program to download videos from YouTube.

Download Get Tube 3.02 in Softonic

iMedia makes it easier to browse all your media from one simple interface. The application can show your photos, videos, music and bookmarks found in your Mac's folders. The top of the interface shows the different folders, which you can open up via a drop down arrow to reveal subfolders. The main part shows a preview of all files in a folder. We quite like the sliding bar, which allows you to easily zoom in and out of files. You can also drag and drop any file that you wish to see in iMedia Browser.

We found that iMedia cleverly manages to unite all media files under one interface. And yet, we sometimes felt that browsing movies or music in the application was not all intuitive. For some file types it just seems more natural to browse from separate applications like iTunes for music. Because iMedia fits all your media files in one place, it can feel a bit cluttered. However some people will find this much more useful to browse through their files quickly and get preview of what is on their Mac.

All in all, iMedia Browser is a useful program to view all your media files from one place.

Download iMedia Browser 1.1.1 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

Looking for an alternative to Apple's Safari or Mozilla's Firefox? Then you might just take the path to Camino.

This browser evolved from being a side project of Mozilla to turning out into a full fledged open source browser for Mac. Built over the Mozilla architecture, it functions in a very similar way as Firefox, is as secure, yet offers a different sort of interface.

Camino is fairly lightweight, at least I have never seen it use up as much memory as Firefox, and loads pages fairly quickly. The search box is fully customizable, so you can add, remove and reorder all the search engines your own way. The open source browser also offers very solid integration of Apple's Keychain technology for storing all your passwords and certificate.

Obviously the real drawback to Camino, and one that might turn off users is that, unlike Firefox, it doesn't offer addons. Like the Mozilla browser it will detect feeds for you and offers tabbed browsing.

If you're looking for a lightweight, fast and secure browser then Camino will suit you. Be aware that it doesn't handle extensions though.

Download Camino 1.6.3 in Softonic

To survive the theft or crash of your Mac you need to make sure you have backups of your most important files. Always overlooked by users, this boring yet necessary task can be easily handled by Time Machine if you have Leopard. If not you'll have to choose a backup program.

BackityMac lets you select what you consider to be your most important files and save them in a dmg. The application offers a simple menu view from which you check the files you'd like to backup, such as Apple Mail files, iCal calendars, or iPhoto and iTunes libraries.

You can save files in a disk image (dmg) or have them burned in a CD or DVD. BackityMac can also restore all your files at the click of a button. A lesser known yet smart feature of BackityMac is that it can import music stored on your iPod back into your iTunes library, in case you've lost it.

BackityMac is simple to use but does include some limitations. For one you won't be able to properly clone your hard drive, meaning you're liable to forget files in the backup process. You won't be able to make incremental backups either so every time you want to save new files you'll have to start from scratch.

In all, BackityMac is a good program for those of you looking for a basic backup solution. For serious backups, find a program which can clone your hard drive, or use Time Machine.

Download BackityMac 2.2 in Softonic

Mac Shutdown automates the act of powering off your Apple computer. You can schedule what days of the month and at what time of the day your Mac can shut down. Mac Shutdown can also power off your Mac as soon as your Safari downloads are completed or when you close a certain file. We would have liked it to automate with more applications, but as the developer says on his website, there should be more options in later versions.

We liked how simple Mac Shutdown was to use. Prescheduling powering off your Mac is handy if you leave your Apple computer on all the time. The program has a simple one window interface where you'll be able to check the time and date of your next shutdown.

Download Mac Shutdown 1.2.5 in Softonic

Incubator is a basic brainstorming tool letting you sketch out your ideas. Drag and drop words and shapes and connect them together, creating branches for the different levels of ideas. The data drawer that slides open at the bottom of your screen also displays a tree view of your ideas.

Links to websites can be added via the Inspector Panel. Just select the link type and copy in the url. Once you've come up with all your ideas, it's time to export them. Either save them to PDF or print them out on paper. In the printing window, you'll be able to adjust how header and footer text appear in print.

While not the most advanced of brainstorming tools, Incubator is fitted with most of the features you'll need to jot down, organized and export your ideas.

Download Incubator 2.5 in Softonic

Ever wanted to record a song from the internet but just didn't have the right tool? Audio Hijack Pro can do that for you. Even better it can record literally any sound from any application or piece of hardware connected to your Mac.

Every piece of audio you grab is saved in the recording bin list. You'll find that Audio Hijack Pro has a quick record function and also lists preset recordings for specific applications like Safari, Skype, iTunes or iChat. It's very easy to add new ones and this really automates the recording process.

You can schedule automatic recording at precise days and hours of the week for each application. Audio Hijack Pro also lets you enter metadata, although it all has to be done manually (I didn't see an import feature), which is a little tedious.

There really is a wide selection of effects to choose from, 60 in all, and you can add more. I did find the process of inserting effects a little confusing, and you really need to connect them correctly to get what you are looking for.

Audio Hijack Pro comes with some preset formats to save your audio. You can create your own but I found Audio Hijack does not let you save them for future use.

Overall though, Audio Hijack Pro lets you record and enhance sounds from any application really quickly.

Download Audio Hijack Pro 2.8.2 in Softonic

Advanced users know and trust Onyx, the maintenance and optimization tool for Mac. Deeper, created by the same developer is like a lighter version of Onyx, essentially offering up all the customization options. The interface is divided into all the main sections that Deeper allows you to customize. You'll be able to fiddle around with the Finder graphical effects like zooming and set horizontal and vertical spacing. Deeper also lets you choose what items you wish to show in the Finder menu.

We also liked choosing how many history items appear in Safari or setting it to automatically open up PDFs in the browser. Another handy setting is automatically disabling the cache. In login settings, you'll be able to choose what users appear and whether to disable elements like Restart or Logout. Deeper can also show the Debug Menu for pretty much all of your Mac features like Spotlight, your Address Book or Terminal.

While for some sections Onyx lets you adjust a good deal of settings, for others it's surprisingly limited. The browser, for one, is limited to Safari. Similarly, settings for Dashboard and Expose don't really offer anything special.

If you don't already have Onyx, Deeper is a good app to have to fiddle around with your Mac's hidden functions.

Download Deeper 1.1.1 in Softonic