Mac Software

The cult favorite Opera browser is moving into the next cycle of "the browser ring." After beta testing, and before the final version, we get the release candidate for Windows and Mac OS. What does this mean for fearless Opera fans?

There's a massive spate of bug fixes in this update, so if stability issues kept you from using previous 9.5 betas, this version should be much more appealing. Other improvements include fixes for downloading e-mail message bodies from all POP accounts, the introduction of a new skin, and smoother upgrading from Opera 9.2. Mac-specific … Read more

Simple, small, and free, Google Desktop for Windows, Mac and, Linux indexes your hard drive the way the company's own servers index the Web. Your search results are returned in a Web-page format that's similar to the Google Web site, and the app's sidebar shows regular updates to your favorite programs, from e-mail to your My Pictures folder to RSS feeds and weather.

Although the initial indexing process can take a long time--especially if you have a lot of e-mail, contacts, chat transcripts, and documents for it to parse through--it's well worth the wait to be … Read more

Despite occasional oddities and a distinct lack of polish, Scribus offers up an open-source freeware desktop publisher robust with a full complement of useful features. Available for Windows, in a portable edition, and for Macs, too, they compare very favorably against more expensive competition.

The detailed Web site includes a wealth of documentation, tutorials, and notes on everything from installation problems to drawing a grid to creating a text frame. As with other similar open-source apps like Blender, the online resources for Scribus are nothing less than invaluable. The interface doesn't sing, but it does hit all the right … Read more

Summer is fast approaching, and Power Downloader is fielding lots of vacation-related questions. Kitty Kilobyte wants to know what's the best way to send her friends and family photos and video of her upcoming trip to South America. Pando for Windows and Mac is the way to go, says Power D.

Power then explains that with Pando installed, Kitty can drag and drop her large folder of images and WMVs into the Pando interface, which lets her send Power D, Francois Foto, and virtually anybody else in her address book a message with a link. When Power clicks that … Read more

While there are other PDF readers out there, the Adobe Reader for Windows and Mac is used the most. Adobe's mastery of the Portable Document Format has been nearly indisputable until recently, and even with stiff competition the Adobe Reader has the name recognition that most users trust. But is it really the best one out there? Get up close and personal with the Reader in this First Look video, judge for yourself, and let us know in the comments below.

On Friday Opera announced that version 9.5 of the browser (download Opera 9.5 beta for Windows or Mac) will include built-in antimalware protection from Haute Secure (download for Windows 32-bit or Windows 64-bit).

This is, of course, to counter the antimalware protection built into Firefox 3, currently available as a final release candidate (download for Windows or Mac). Firefox uses data from Google and StopBadware to block a site before it loads on your browser.

Haute Secure counters that its offering is better because it relies upon a community of dedicated users to inform the product when to … Read more

Session Manager can save, backup, restore, and manage multiple Firefox tab sessions. It comes with the option of loading the last saved session, not loading a previous session, loading a specific older session, or asking the user to choose. If it stopped there, it'd still be more powerful than the native Firefox session manager is but it has more to offer.

In addition, it can save more than 20 older sessions, and offers users several options for session management when closing Firefox. The plug-in automatically backs up sessions in the event of a crash. Users can also configure how … Read more

If you're looking for a free, professional-level video editor, Jahshaka for Windows and Mac should top your list. With every release, it gets more stable and gains more features.

The list of what the application can do is extensive and exhaustive. It can handle real-time image processing with node-based effects; edit DV, SD, HD and film; do real-time 3D compositing and Flash animation; OpenGL-based paint; and it has a text module. There are also modules for color correction, keying, and tracking, and an array of media support. It comes with JahPlayer, a media player that claims to work with &… Read more

For those of you waiting with bated breath for Firefox 3, Mozilla has just published Release Candidate 2 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Windows Portable. There are no new features to celebrate or examine: what we're looking at is pure, unadulterated bug fixing. Users can expect a somewhat more stable browser, with the regular mix of security tweaks and otherwise minor changes.

Full release notes can be read here.