Ten Mac freeware apps for your new Apple baby

The latest from the software gift horse stables

MPlayerX

If you’re sick of all the praise that VLC gets or you happen to have that one niche case that it just can’t handle, give MPlayerX a try. It’s built, as the name suggests, on the much lauded MPlayer engine, which combined with FFmpeg can handle just about anything.

The interface is just about as minimalist as you can get, but there’s a whole lot under the surface, like the excellent multitouch integration, so the lack of buttons is far from an inconvenience. Throw in the intelligent playlist generation, and raw DTS/AC3 streaming via S/PDIF passthrough and it’s quite the seamless media experience. ®

Developer Zongyao Qu
More info MPlayerX

The Unarchiver

Outstandingly limited is probably the best way to describe Apple’s built-in Archive Utility, an application that turns its nose up at password protected ZIP files and sports a feature set that is shorter than the list of promises a politician will actually keep.

In the past ridding oneself of this blight required the use of Stuffit Expander which itself hasn’t aged too well either, however, the savvy user can now enjoy the delights of hassle-free decompression with The Unarchiver. It’s open source and can handle just about anything you throw at it (including RAR and Stuffit formats) – what’s not to like?

Developer Dag Ågren
More info The Unarchiver