7 essential must have applications for Mac OS X

This is my list of essential little helpers every Mac should have installed. These tools are not very expensive and can improve productivity on a Mac a lot.

1. Little Snitch

The Firewall that comes with Mac OS X is a very simple one. That’s because Apple tries to keep the user’s life simple. That firewall doesn’t allow much of settings and handles only incoming traffic. As long as you are a “normal” user it’s great, but if you would like to control outgoing traffic too you need to find another solution. Looking for a better firewall I came across a lot of apps and Little Snitch turned out to be the only one that would handle outgoing traffic as well. Furthermore it integrates perfectly with your Mac as a small tray icon. After having installed Little Snitch I was shocked about all the applications that where trying to connect to some strange servers. It’s really a must-have security tool for every Mac.

 

2. iFreeMem

iFreeMem can help you in optimizing your Mac’s memory after having a long session. It will clean up all memory blocks that are not in use anymore (typically after quitting memory intensive applications) and rearrange others that are in use. After installation you will find a new tray icon in your toolbar which will show you the currently consumed memory. A click will open a small box with a more detailed memory allocation and an “Optimize Memory” button. So from time to time when you need a little bit more memory just run this tool and you won’t need to reboot at all.

 

3. 1Password

1Password can store all your passwords used on websites. Moreover it can handle full forms as well. This is very useful during web development when you need to test extensive web applications. All your passwords and forms can be protected with one master password so you want need to remember all the others anymore. 1Password integrates directly as a toolbar in your browser and will give you the easyness of “one-click-login”.

 

4. AppDelete

When I was new to Macs I fell immediately for the simple install/unistall process. But sometimes applications leave a lot of useless trash on your system. AppDelete will help you to clean up your Mac from all associated files of any software. It’s a great tool to keep your Mac healthy.

 

 

5. iArchiver

Being used to Zip and Rar files iArchiver became a very good friend of mine. Of course there are more professional solutions out there like StuffIt, but this one is really cheap.

 

 

 

6. KeyCue

Especially for Mac-beginners this tool can be a lot of help. By simply holding down the command key it will show you a window with the most important hotkey combinations. After a while using it I remembered more and more hotkeys. Great for productivity.

 

 

 

7. AirGrab WiFi Radar

Apple’s AirPort can give you only limited information about the quality of your wireless connection. With AirGrab you can find out exactly how good or bad the connection in reality is and what other networks surround you.