Idle Time

Following the recent flap about MacUpdate prematurely listing Perian 1.0 before it had really gone 1.0, I think it appropriate to present a list of software-listing sites that are not MacUpdate. If you want to boycott or just casually avoid MacUpdate, whether for that reason or other reasons, this list will help you do that.

You’ll know some of these, but you may not know all of them. I’ll start with the ones you probably know and build up to lesser-known sites. That said, the order is not strict, so just because site A came after site B doesn’t necessarily mean site A is any better or lesser-known.

• VersionTracker: The old standard. This was the very first Mac-specific software-listing site, and MacUpdate’s primary competition (indeed, MacUpdate exists to compete with it).

  VT’s main downside is used to be that it is was a very ad-heavy page. This inspired MacUpdate’s founding principle: fewer (initially no, as I remember it) ads, so that the page would load faster.

  One handy—though well-hidden—feature is that on the “Updates by Category” tab, at the bottom, there’s a list of single-license lists, including a freeware-only list.

  UPDATE 2007-07-06: VT has mostly done away with ads, and has a freeware view. Thanks to Hoopla for pointing out my error and the freeware view in a comment.

• Download.com: The other old standard. I’m not sure which is older. Unlike VersionTracker, Download.com was for Windows (maybe even DOS) first, then added Mac software later.

• Softpedia: A more recent entry (at least on the Mac). It’s quite similar to Download.com and Tucows, IMO. You can tell that they were a Windows site first because of what every developer they list gets: an (unintentionally-)amusing email certifying that the developer’s software is virus-free, along with an icon on the listing page indicating the same certification. Mac users (at least those who haven’t used Windows recently) see this “100% virus-free” graphic and think “Yeah? Why wouldn’t it be?”.

  One nice feature is that, like VT, it lets you filter the list to only freeware.

  UPDATE 2007-07-06: The same update as above. Specifically, I added “, like VT,”.

• Tucows: The third of three (that I know of) sites that originally only listed DOS/Windows software; also the other other old standard. I never used it much, but it’s much better than I remember it: the last time I tried it, I couldn’t figure out how to download any of the software listed.

• iUseThis: The newest entry into this field. The hook of iUseThis is that it works similarly to digg: If you use an app, you can go to its listing and vote it up (that is, digg it) using the “i use this” button. AppFresh integrates it, which is nice if you’re both an iUseThis user and an AppFresh user. (Be sure to click the button on AppFresh’s iUseThis listing for mad cyclicality.)

• Macintosh Products Guide: The elder of Apple’s two software-listing sites. Though it’s open to any software, the MPG emphasizes commercial products.

• Apple’s Mac OS X Downloads: I suspect this isn’t well-known, because Apple’s main effort to publicize it is a menu item in the Apple menu. (It’s much better-known among Dashboard widget authors, as it was the first site indexing widgets.) Trying to help that, MacBreak did a recent MacBreak Minute about it. (To be clear, I had already known about it before the MacBreak episode.)

  Not to be confused with the Macintosh Products Guide, listed above.

  (Added a few minutes later: Chris tells me it actually does bring in a fair number of downloads, especially if you get featured.)

• Pure-Mac: Unlike the others, Pure-Mac places less of an emphasis on the running list of new and updated titles, instead presenting above the fold its list of categories. This is Pure-Mac’s central feature: the other sites simply maintain a blob of software that you search with a field, whereas Pure-Mac breaks them down into smaller category blobs.

  Pure-Mac is also probably the fastest-loading of the sites, because it uses static pages rather than CGI.

  Full disclosure: I do know the maintainer somewhat, as both I and the maintainer have been regulars on the same IRC channel at the same time. That didn’t affect Pure-Mac’s placement within this list.

• HyperJeff: Perhaps the smallest of the software-listing sites (though Pure-Mac gives it a run for its money). HyperJeff’s site lists libraries and frameworks alongside applications, and notes whether each app is Carbon, Cocoa, or Java. He has written about his catalog’s characteristics on his “Why this listing exists” page.

• Open Source Mac: A simple, digested list of what the maintainers think are the best open-source apps on the Mac. If you’d like to use as little closed-source software as possible, this is a good first stop.

  Full disclosure: Adium is listed here, and I’m one of Adium’s developers. Again, that didn’t affect the placement of the site within this list.

• Mac Games and More: Guess what it emphasizes!

  I found this one upon searching Google for “mac software” to check whether I’d missed any. I’ve never used it before, so I haven’t much to say about it.

You know, I never realized how many Mac-software listings there are before making a list. There are nearly a dozen listed here. That’s a cool fact right there.

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