If you scan the web you’ll find quite a few web pages that give you a list of Mac software that is just plain useful. Some lists show free stuff only - there are many good free software products for the Mac. Some give you a mix of paid and free. All such pages are incredibly useful to the Mac newcomer, because they help you get started..

Here’s mine. It’s different from the others in one respect, at least. It lists all the software products that I actually use.

This makes the list a little skewed because, for example, it doesn’t include much software for manipulating sound and video, because I don’t do that. However it has the virtue I’ve used every product listed for at least 6 months and I find each product mentioned to be worth owning, whether it cost something or nothing:

Generally Useful Software

This is where I put everything that doesn’t classify easily.

FireFox: I tried using Safari for a while and not using FireFox. In the end I just gave in. FireFox is better, for me at least. If you do web development you need Firefox for its developer plug-ins anyway. I tried IE but it was hopeless. Of course I use them all and Opera for testing the web pages.

Quicksilver: This is a launcher but it does a great deal more if you really want to plumb the depths of the program. If you do nothing more than install it to launch programs then it’ll be worth the effort of downloading it. It makes you more productive and it’s free (it would be worth paying for).

1Password: This is damned useful. It allows you to have different persona and it maintains and remembers passwords for each. It also keeps your financial info for filling in orders on web sites. It encrypts everything. You end up not having to remember passwords any more.

KeyCue: Either you use keyboard shortcuts or you do not. I use them a lot so KeyCue is for me. This utility throws up a menu of all shortcuts in the current application when you hold down the command key for a second. If you don’t use shortcuts, forget it.