Is nothing free?

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Sure I'm new to mac, but one thing I didn't expect buying into the system is that every little piece of software costs money. Stuff that windows come with for free like a disk defragmenter, or a little calendar that drops down when you hit the time. Everything is either shareware with nag screen or a trial. Where is all the free software and utilities?



Right now I'm looking for a free disk defragger.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 21
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/apme/fragmentation/

    Quote:

    Defragmentation on HFS+ volumes should not be necessary at all, or worthwhile, in most cases, because the system seems to do a very good job of avoiding/countering fragmentation.



  • Reply 2 of 21
    http://macosx.com/forums/boot-camp-o...not-moved.html



    Bootcamp will not install until I defrag this systeml
  • Reply 3 of 21
    For a menu bar clock with a drop down calendar, MenuCalendarClock has a 'free mode' that won't nag you. You can't change all of the prefs, but you can use the basic calendar and can fully customize the clock display...



    Also, don't forget that Dashboard comes with a Calendar widget.
  • Reply 4 of 21
    Also, it should be noted that Mac OS X defrags on the fly with no need for a routine defrag.



    Anyways...



    about your request:



    http://www.opensourcemac.org/ (Mostly Excellent free open sources programs for Mac. The two I recommend the most are Adium (multi-client, very expandable, customizable, elegant, simple, with support for advanced features and scripts instant messenger), and Cyberduck (a good FTP client).



    Another freeware list for Macs:



    http://www.cornstalker.com/freeware/x.html



    And of course, you'll want to browse Apple's Mac OS X downloads. Great connection to both freeware and great shareware.



    http://www.apple.com/macosx/downloads
  • Reply 5 of 21
    There is a ton of free apps, although a lot of them have an option to donate.



    One I check daily is FreeMacWare.com which highlights one new free app each day.



    The other is http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/ which is attempt to list ALL OS X apps, from the free ones to full commercial packages. The list is now 16,000+ apps and you can browse for hours by category finding sufficient free ones to fill your HD.



    Another great free app (donations accepted) is SMARTReporter. It puts a small HD icon on your menu bar. WHen it's green your HD is fine. It turns red if the HD is starting to fail, and you can also set it to send you an email. Gives you a chance to get the panic backups done before it totally fails. You can download it at:



    http://homepage.mac.com/julianmayer/
  • Reply 6 of 21
    gongon Posts: 2,437member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RedDel


    Sure I'm new to mac, but one thing I didn't expect buying into the system is that every little piece of software costs money. Stuff that windows come with for free like a disk defragmenter, or a little calendar that drops down when you hit the time. Everything is either shareware with nag screen or a trial. Where is all the free software and utilities?



    Right now I'm looking for a free disk defragger.



    It might take you some time to start finding stuff, but OS X has a far better selection of free stuff than Windows. (Other than games.) The only thing I ever paid something for on the Mac OS platform is OmniOutliner Pro, which doesn't have an equivalent on Windows at any cost.



    Search for threads such as "best FTP client" "best free IRC client" etc. right here on AppleInsider, you'll find a lot of the recommended stuff is free.



    On my Dock right now: Vienna, Firefox, Vim, iCal, Safari, Mail, OmniOutliner Pro, iTunes, Colloquy, Active Timer, Eclipse, SvnX, VideoLan Client, MPlayer, Terminal, ViewIt (okay, this oneis shareware and nags me all the time... anyone know a lightweight, fast picture viewer for viewing tens of photos without arranging them to a library?), Transmission, JavaBrowser, Preview, LimeWire, Poisoned, Activity Viewer.



    That's one commercial app, one shareware app, and tons of apps that are free or come with OS X.



    If you are tech savvy, install Fink and/or DarwinPorts, both of which are "gateways" to access thousands of free Linux/Unix software. All kinds of software.
  • Reply 7 of 21
    majormattmajormatt Posts: 1,077member
    Us shareware developers cant survive on making free things
  • Reply 8 of 21
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RedDel


    http://macosx.com/forums/boot-camp-o...not-moved.html



    Bootcamp will not install until I defrag this systeml



    Quit all apps, then try again.
  • Reply 9 of 21
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RedDel


    Sure I'm new to mac, but one thing I didn't expect buying into the system is that every little piece of software costs money. Stuff that windows come with for free like a disk defragmenter, or a little calendar that drops down when you hit the time. Everything is either shareware with nag screen or a trial. Where is all the free software and utilities?



    Right now I'm looking for a free disk defragger.



    VersionTracker.com and MacUpdate.com should keep you happy for years.
  • Reply 10 of 21
    Thanks guys for all your answers. I knew it had to be out tehre, just got frustrated with google alone.



    Hey I've been to versiontracker before, is that strictly mac based?
  • Reply 11 of 21
    The great thing about macupdate.com is that if you need say, um, PDF software just type



    macupdate.com/PDF software and it will save you some time
  • Reply 12 of 21
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RedDel


    ...



    Hey I've been to versiontracker before, is that strictly mac based?



    Read the tabs carefully.
  • Reply 13 of 21
    keshkesh Posts: 621member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RedDel


    Thanks guys for all your answers. I knew it had to be out tehre, just got frustrated with google alone.



    Hey I've been to versiontracker before, is that strictly mac based?



    Nope. They do Mac, Windows and PalmOS software.
  • Reply 14 of 21
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MajorMatt


    Us shareware developers cant survive on making free things



    I can understand that - I can't work for free either.



    What I love about "free" apps is that I can try them before making a decision to keep them - and to send the developer a donation. There are also a lot of "limited" free versions that you can play with and make a decision on purchasing the full version.



    The unique thing about Macs, for me at least, is there is so many new things I can do that I never would have thought of doing on the PC platform. Even an old (62)fart like me can dig through lists of new apps and try new thing. To be honest, though, I probably keep (and donate to) about 20% of what I experiment with.
  • Reply 15 of 21
    anyone know a lightweight, fast picture viewer for viewing tens of photos without arranging them to a library?



    Try out CocoViewX. Small, free and nice GUI.



    http://www.stalkingwolf.net/software/cocoviewx/
  • Reply 16 of 21
    The warm fuzzy feeling you get from being a Mac owner is free! 8)





    MacJanitor is a util that runs housekeeping chores that are usually done at night on you Mac.
  • Reply 17 of 21
    eckingecking Posts: 1,588member
    Why would you need a drop down calendar when you have a dashboard widget for it? Just press f12.



    OSX doesn't need defragging, it does it itself. Look in your applications folder there's plenty in there, then think about what's left that you don't have and take the advice from the thread.



    I've only bought I software title for my macs Final Cut Studio, everything else is free.
  • Reply 18 of 21
    More places to go...Freeware...



    http://www.opensourcemac.org/



    http://www.freemacware.com/



    Shareware and Freeware



    http://osx.iusethis.com/
  • Reply 19 of 21
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RedDel


    Right now I'm looking for a free disk defragger.



    I had the same problem:



    http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?p=995838



    The quickest solution is to buy a cheap external drive. Get Superduper and use the free mode to clone your internal drive to the external one. Then use Disk Utility to format your drive - remember, just the standard HFS+ journaled format, no need to zero the drive.



    Then clone the system back using Superduper again and Bootcamp should partition. Note, I don't think you can partition using Disk Utility because of the type of partition expected so you must use bootcamp to do it but it should work after a format.



    In many ways as I said in the other thread, I believe this method is better than defragging because if you have an up to date backup, it should take around 1-3 hours whereas defragging can take all night and more. Plus defragging can mess up your drive. Cloning is a pretty safe procedure. I think you can also use Disk Utility to do a backup but not a bootable one. This may be faster than SuperDuper.
  • Reply 20 of 21
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin


    In many ways as I said in the other thread, I believe this method is better than defragging because if you have an up to date backup, it should take around 1-3 hours whereas defragging can take all night and more. Plus defragging can mess up your drive. Cloning is a pretty safe procedure.



    Yes, agreed. Cloning, erasing and cloning back is definitely a faster, more thorough/effective and less error-prone means of optimizing a partition than using a de-fragmentation/optimization tool. The cloning tool gets to linearly, cleanly write files, one after the other, onto the target partition. No need to keep making room somewhere to put stuff from somewhere else a zillion times, as a defrag app would.



    Defrag techniques also have a tendency to counter existing optimization techniques from the hard drive itself, the operating system, and the specific file system implementation, sometimes to the point where they actually slow down more than they would have sped up.



    So for all intents and purposes, on HFS+, if you really feel your file system is very unclean, follow this technique ? and I agree SuperDuper! is a great tool to do it with. Leave defrag tools up for file systems which, in this regard, anyhow, are far inferior, such as (sadly) NTFS.
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