100 essential apps for Mac

Mac Tricks And Tips have published a list of top 100 essential programs for Mac. It’s pretty often I come upon this type of post when looking for Mac news to give out. While the majority of them are often very similar, some differ on a few applications, depending on the writer’s interests and knowledge. This list, as you’ll find, is divided into six sections: computer files, internet, tools, little apps, multimedia and work. It would be hard to really pick out clear favorites in each category, but let me try out.

In computer files I’d single out the Quicksilver productivity app, because of its intuitiveness, UnRar X, because it is so precious when opening up archive files and AppZapper because it allows you to fully uninstall all associated files of a program.

My favorite Mac internet apps would definitely be the Transmission BitTorrent client, Adium for chatting on any IM service, Cyberduck to upload and download files and Unison to handle newsgroups.

Out of multimedia I’d single out the ultra versatile VLC player, Aperture for professional image editing, Google Earth for its originality and Pixelmator as an enjoyable alternative to Photoshop.

Of the so called little apps the only one that really stands out for me is iAlertU, an ingenious program for keeping thieves away from your Mac.

Moving on to tools, Carbon Copy Cloner is an excellent and free backup solution in case you don’t have Time Machine, Coconut Battery is great to monitor your battery, and Growl is an essential tool to receive updates. Also check out Monolingual for translations and either Parallels or VMWare for virtualizations.

Last but not least, the best work tools for Mac are iWork as an office suite, Quicken for personal finance and Filemaker to organize your folders.