14 DAY TRIAL // What would you say if I were to tell that the default apps on your newly bought OS X system have free alternatives out there that, sometimes, are actually better? Yes, there are developers that can do a (slightly) better job than Apple when it comes to performing certain tasks on OS X, be it watching a movie, reading your mail, surfing the web, or almost any other thing you may think of.
Some of them will prove to be way better than their Apple flavored friends and, although they will not score higher in the “good looking” area, they will certainly do a wonderful job on the task you will use them for. Even if not all of them will hit your sweet tooth right in the middle, most of them might just blow your mind and make you ask yourselves how can anyone not use them.
The first example (and probably the one that everyone will agree on) is the RSS reader. While on Mac OS X there is no default RSS reader you can use – you will have to go for the RSS feature available in either Mail or Safari – the free apps kingdom will deliver you a high quality application that will fulfill all your RSS reading needs.
The culprit is Vienna which, as the developer’s homepage reveals, is “a freeware, open source RSS/Atom newsreader for the Mac OS X operating system. It provides features comparable to commercial newsreaders, but both it and the source code are freely available for download”.
How could it prove better than its Apple cousins? It is an app on its own and it will not make a mess out of your mail reading or web surfing experience. Yes, I said it. I don’t want (or need) a RSS reader in my email client or in my web browser. The other thing is that it will offer all the features one needs in such an app.
The second Apple – Free pair is iChat – Adium. While I’m sure most of you don’t even want to hear about changing sides in this case (why would you when iChat gives you everything you need?), I have to say that Adium – at least in my case – is capable of providing a better OS X experience. I don’t know why that happens and if others have the same feeling, Adium comes with every feature I’d ever need.
Don’t think I haven’t had my share of iChat usage. I used it enough to be able to make a comparison with Adium and, whatever everyone else has told me or will try to say to convince me iChat is the better one, I’ll always go for Adium. All I say is this: use it for a couple of weeks and then comeback and tell me what you think about it.
The third, and the messiest, battle is between Safari and Firefox. While the first will get its army’s soldiers from the die-hard Apple fans that will say there is no alternative to Safari (the self entitled “world’s best browser”), Firefox will be backed up by the people who like to customize their web browser so as to accomplish a whole new array of tasks it was not intended to.
When it comes to speed, it largely depends on the number of add-ons you decide your Firefox should have. The more you’ll stick in, the worse the speed performance will be. On the other hand, Apple seems to sabotage its own browser because (and I didn’t even want to go here but I have to make a point so that Safari fans won’t jump at my throat) Safari will just crash on you. If you do not use the 3.2 build, just go HERE and see what others have said about this issue.
The result of this comparison is that while Safari will look better than Firefox on your Mac, Firefox will do a better job. And I say that after almost three years of using Firefox on the Mac. I’ve also used Safari but after having tried Firefox, I understood that the Apple branded web browser would never provide me with a level of extensibility or customization as Firefox would. Now all there is left to do is to try them both yourselves and tell us what you think.
Let’s talk about email clients now: Mail - Thunderbird. The default Apple app, Mail, will pretty much blow any other email client out of the water because, from my experience, Mail is the one email client capable of making an impression for life. Once you go Mail, you’ll never go any other way. The free alternative is Thunderbird which, although covering all the areas the Apple app does, will not offer you the Apple feel all OS X users have got accustomed to. This is the main reason why Thunderbird fails to be a rival to Mail when it comes to choosing the best email client on OS X.
I have used Thunderbird for about half a year and have missed the Mail experience every second of it. I’ve never been able to put my finger on the exact reason this happened. If only there was a Windows alternative.
Let’s talk multimedia. Apple gives you Quicktime, iTunes, and iDVD so you can play your videos, listen to your music and watch your DVDs and the freeware team brings VLC in the arena. While iTunes and QuickTime do not only have multimedia playing capabilities, this is the area I’ll be focusing on when comparing them to VLC because this is what the average Joe will use the two apps for.
The thing is that I prefer VLC for audio, video and DVD playing because it’s an integrated solution and it will do a great job. Yes, the Quicktime, iTunes and iDVD trio also does a very good job when it comes to dealing with all these tasks but why not use only an app if you can? Even more, why not use VLC considering it does a better job than before?
The next pair is iWork and OpenOffice. iWork is Apple’s approach to a word processor, presentation creator and spreadsheet manager. As Apple says, it will “Work wonders, without the work” and as far as I’m concerned, I recommend iWork to anyone as it is a very good piece of software that will do the job it has been created for. But it will not come with the OS as all the other apps I have talked about until now and will cost you $79 if you want to use it on a daily basis on your Mac.
Its alternative, OpenOffice, is a free software package that will enable you to work on all the tasks iWork is famed for and even more. As revealed on the developer’s website, OpenOffice is “the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose”. What more can you ask from such piece of software? The only OpenOffice drawback I can think about is the fact that you will not feel quite comfortably when using it on your Mac. But this will be greatly diminished by its usability and the fact that it will allow you to get your job done for free.
The last battle of the war is between Apple’s Finder and the muCommander cross-platform file manager. Finder will attract users on its side of the battle by shear usability and simplicity, while its free alternative will be the choice of those in love with the two side types of file manager. muCommander will especially look very promising to people who have recently come from the Windows land, people that have never forgotten their long last love for the DOS Norton Commander.
In other words, if you are an OS X die-hard and an organized person who knows their way around the OS X file system, there will probably never be a file manager that could even try to replace Finder on your Mac. However, if you are a newcomer to OS X, you will find muCommander a lot more usable and it will help you do your job without thinking you’re lost. After all, it’s just a matter of taste and usability.
I was going to take on the Terminal vs iTerm battle but by judging from what I’ve seen so far by extensively using both of them on my Mac after the Leopard upgrade, the Terminal will give you an even better experience when compared to iTerm. iTerm’s best known feature, not available in the Tiger version of Terminal, was the fact that it allowed you to create and manage tabs in the same window but the Terminal has overtaken that handicap and is now a full blown tab capable application.
What do you think about the free alternatives? Are they better than the Apple branded apps? If so, what are the apps that will put their Apple alternatives to shame? Let us know by inserting a comment.