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Top Ten Programs To Download On A Mac

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Top Ten Programs To Download On A Mac

VideoJug present a film showing you the top ten programs to download on a Mac. Check out our guide to what every Mac should have, and download these free programmes on your Mac. VideoJug present a film showing you the top ten programs to download on a Mac. Check out our guide to what every Mac should have, and download these free programmes on your Mac.

Step 1: Firefox

Mac OS X comes with Apple's own web browser, Safari and while it's a very good browser, a lot of the internet was designed to run with Microsoft's Internet Explorer instead, so sometimes you'll come across problems getting certain websites to run properly.

Step 2: Internet Explorer

The simple way around this would be to download Internet Explorer for the Mac - and you can do that at www.microsoft.com/mac. The trouble is, Microsoft stopped fully supporting the Mac version of Internet Explorer back in 2000 and frankly while it's still worth having as a backup, it's now out of date.

A better option is Mozilla's Firefox browser, which you can find at www.mozilla.com/en-US. It's similar to Internet Explorer so it's generally more compatible with the internet than Safari is, and on top of that it's an open source project, which means that it's kept up to date by hundreds of people around the world.

Step 3: MSN Messenger

OS X also comes with iChat which is Apple's own instant messaging and video chat program. It works with the most popular messaging services (including AOL and Jabber) but it doesn't work with Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger (or MSN Messenger as it used to be known), which many PC owners still use. You can get a Mac version of Microsoft Messenger at www.microsoft.com/mac and while it doesn't have as many features as the PC version, it will let you talk to Windows Messenger users and will also keep on your Hotmail account.

Step 4: Skype

Another service that replaces iChat is Skype. Again, I'm recommending this as many PC users have it and if you want to talk to them, you're going to need it. You can download it at www.skype.com. If you bought your Mac in 2006 or later, it will have a built in iSight camera for use with iChat, but it can also be used for Skype, which gives you free video chats over the internet and lets you make cheap international phone calls to conventional phones. If you don't have an iSight camera, there's a list of compatible plug-in webcams on the Skype website - and the ability to use plug in cameras is something you won't find in natively iChat.

Step 5: VLC

OS X's default video player is Quicktime, and while it's pretty good, it can't handle many of the popular video file formats you might come across, so you should download VLC Media Player from www.videolan.org/vlc. This program is not only better at playing video files than Quicktime is, but it'll also cope with almost any file format you throw at it - except for the latest versions or Windows Media and RealPlayer files.

Step 6: Windows Media Player and Flip4Mac

Windows Media Player. Microsoft stopped supporting the Mac at Media Player number 9 - they're onto version 10 on the PC. You can still download Media Player 9 for the Mac at Microsoft.com/mac but they've also teamed up with software house Telestream to offer their Flip4Mac program for free. Flip4Mac adds Windows Media Support to Quicktime and works well, if a little slowly.

Step 7: Real Player

The last of our video programs is Real Player, which you can get at uk.real.com/player. While VLC already supports this kind of file, you get better playback and internet video streaming with the standalone program.

Step 8: Audio Hijack

Audio Hijack lets you record the sound output from pretty much any program running on your Mac. What that means in practice is that you can record internet radio, DVD soundtracks or streaming audio broadcasts and save them to do with as you will. What makes Audio Hijack really special is that only records from one source at a time, so your recording won't be spoilt by system beeps or messenger alerts if they happen. Audio Hijack also features a few tools for improving the sound of poor quality recordings. You can find it at www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack. The free version only lets you record 10 minutes of audio, but that's enough for most uses and it is then up to you if you want to spend the £9 or so it takes to get the full version.

Step 9: Backlight

One area that OS X has always beat Windows in is appearance. Backlight is another tool that will give your desktop the looks to leave Vista users green with envy. Download it from freshsqueeze.com/products/freeware and it will use your current screensaver as you desktop background. It may not sound like much, but having the Flurry or those soothing beach scenes sliding smoothly across your desktop beats dull old wallpaper any day.

Step 10: Stuffit Expander

OK, I slightly boring one this, but useful none the less. Stuffit Expander is a free program that makes it easier to expand many of the compressed files you'll download from the internet. It used to come bundled with older versions of OS X, and although the internet and Macs in particular are moving towards .Zip and .DMG as a standard for compressed files, Stuffit will come in handy whenever you come across anything different. Get it from www.stuffit.com/mac.

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Tips & Comments
  1. Anonymous

    is it just me or does backlight not download properly it says it cant find the server

  2. guesswho

    There is actually no need to install the IE. I have found till now that every web page that I actually want to open on the mac is compatible with safari or firefox. The soul exceptions are the pages from Microsoft, but I don't see anyone trying to open the windows update site on a mac os x. As for the windows messenger, I find it really slow on my mac - my advice install it only if NEEDED and not just for fun (surely the thingy installs some backgroud processes which hogs a lot of ram sometimes). I personally do not like to use hundreds of video players. Remember keep it simple - the mac style. Install divx, flipformac, ac3 (ac52) and you are done for 90% of everything that you may encounter. As to stay on the safe side the VLC can do some good job, even if I think it definitely shortens the battery life more than quicktime does. Stuffit is a great program, but it seems to start a lot of residential processes and sometimes is only annoying. after some tweaking it can be your friend, nevertheless. As for the eye-candy, in my opinion you will be better of without it. shortens the battery life of the notebook for example. The Tiger & the Leopard are already pretty good looking without external (redundant) software.

  3. Nige

    After watching this vid I downloaded VLC. It is brilliant thanks.

  4. shroudingsteel

    my recomendatinos Web Browser- Camino Mozilla syle, mac power Instant Messenger- Adium compatable with many instant messaging protocols, integrates them into one. only negative, no video or audio Video Player- VLC is great, but I'd recommend downloading DivX as well

  5. Anonymous

    a suggestion: shapeshifter. http://unsanity.com/haxies/shapeshifter This is probably one of the coolest programs for mac i've seen, and takes the visual capabilities of mac to a whole new level. It's very awesome.

  6. iainrwilson@yahoo.com.au

    I think this video has a few bad recomendations, if non technical people install all this junk they are going to notice considerable slowdowns in performance and may not realise why! A bit too many Microsoft programs on the list here. As a rule I avoid putting anything MS on my Mac, not because I'm oh so superior Mac user, but I've found that whenever you install an MS product it installs a while bunch of background tasks as well which take up a lot of CPU time. Couple of my own recomendations, if like me you find MS Office for Mac buggy and crashes a lot (particularly with Powerpoint files) try NeoOffice, it's free, open source and handles most MS Office files better than MS Office for Mac does! My only issue with NeoOffice is that it seems to take ages to start up, so it might be worth your while just leaving it running all the time, it doesn't take too much in the way of resources. For Video I've found that there's nothing a combination of VLC (very good recomendation) and DIVX for Mac won't play. If absolutely necessary you can also install Real Player, just watch for all the plug in's and add on's it tries to install along with it. Flip4Mac is good and I've not found any slowdowns. There's been a number of vulnerabilities with MSN for Mac and PC, again, only install it if really necessary, I personally would try and convert your friends to Skype before installing MSN for Mac. Screensavers as desktop background hog CPU usage, the way I see it, it's only useful if you aren't doing anything and are able to see the desktop anyway, in which case you can just set your screensaver to come on within a couple of minutes and you can enjoy it when you want rather than it slowing everything else down. There you go, that's my 10 cents worth.

  7. arnor

    @Yellowbuzz: Well, I might point out a couple: First off, Internet Explorer, as is mentioned is way too outdated, buggy and also unsupported to be on the list at all. Both Safari, Firefox and also Camino will render 99% of the pages you want just fine. You can also tell those browsers to "pretend" they're IE, and get a much better result. IE/Mac is also horrendously slow, as it was never really designed to run under OSX, rather than OS 9.. As for instant messaging clients/MSN. MSN is also not a reccomended option. It too is slow, and as mentioned, lacking in features. A much better alternative would be to go for Adium, available from http://adiumx.com, which is much more reliable, more feature rich, and I might add, prettier. Adium still does not support webcam and such (nor does Microsoft's MSN client), though - so for that you may want to consider Java-based programs such as Mercury or aMSN. Speaking of webcams, if you bought your mac before or after 2006, really doesn't guarantee that you have or have not got an iSight camera. Powermacs or Macs Pro still does not have a built-in iSight, and you would have to have a separate iSight, which you can have with any mac, even if it was bought before 2006... Also, though not an error, nor an omission: I would most definitely have other programs on the top 10. Quicksilver, Aurora, NetNewsWire Light, PathFinder (though not free), NeoOffice and Doodim would all come before WMP, Audio hijack and Skype when it comes to must-have apps for the general consumer... But that's just me... (Also, most of the uses for Audio Hijack mentioned is far into the gray area between "fair use" and illegal, due to copyright laws...)

  8. yellowbuzz

    it looks great to me, could you say what the errors and omissions are?

  9. anndra

    Lots of errors and omissions in this video.