2016 Mac Applications For a New Computer

I got around to reinstalling apps on a computer. Here are my current thoughts about what to install, if you have the money.

Internet Browsers - Chrome and Firefox (with TabMix Plus extension) at the minimum (Chrome Canary, Sea Monkey, OmniWeb, Opera, Maxthon, Seamonkey are options if you have a lot of e-mail addresses) - Then install AdBlock Plus on all of them that it is supported on. Install Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, and Adobe Shockwave. You will need to manually allow Microsoft Silverlight to work on Firefox for Netflix to work on it.

CleanApp version 3 instead of 5, and do this before installing most other apps. Version 5 can auto-select associated files, like DocumentIMade.xlsx and delete that, if you don't unselect it. The earlier this application is installed, the sooner the log file will be created that documents all files created when a new application is installed so it can be fully uninstalled when it is ready to be removed. It does best

Office App - Microsoft 2016 (not free) or Openoffice.org or LibreOffice for Macs which are free

Audio recording app - Audacity or Garage Band. I like Audacity.

Photo editing App - Adobe CS6's Photoshop or Gimp (free)

Video editing App - iMovie/Final Cut Pro/Adobe Premier

Volume increaser/recording app - Audio Hijack (systemwide) or old Audio Hijack Pro (app specific)

AeroSnap for Mac - Just pay the $4 and buy Better Touch Tool. I haven't seen a good free option.

Backup Apps - Time Machine is free, but it doesn't let you browse your files easily when viewing the backup drive. I like Carbon Copy Cloner, not free, and/or Super Duper (free + paid version).

Clipboard manager - ClipMenu is free and holds dozens of copied text and images for use later. Great if on an unreliable connection to have in case whatever you typed gets lost.

DiskInventory X - Lets you view the size of files and apps on your computer, jut do NOT use the delete function built into this app. Uninstall them through CleanApp or a drag and drop.

External Drive Recovery - If you have cash to burn, Disk Warrior 5 can repair externally connected drives, including though 2012 computers connected via Firewire and in target disk mode.

Media Apps - iTunes is very functional for audio, especially if you want to change the format or bitrate. VLC can play most file types. Not sure of the best app for video. ITunes will do it. You may want to set up the default import settings to 128 or higher MP3 for good compatibility across platforms in iTunes.

Pictures - Not sure of the best app. Photos works, but isn't my favorite, but there aren't a lot of options. Picassa is another. My current understanding is that when you right click on the application and show Package Contents there is a Masters folder and another folder called Edited or something and combined they may be 16 GB, but iPhoto may be 30 GB large. Seems bloated and I can't drag and drop photos to an email, which is annoying. I have to drag to a folder of my desktop I create, and from there drag to my e-mail to attach.

Dual Boot Software - Bootcamp (free), for 1 OS operation at a time, or VMware (paid) if you want to run Windows and Mac at the same time (or Parallels (paid), but VMWare has better reviews). You can create a Bootcamp image and access it via VMWare (or probably Parallels), th downside being it takes up a static amount of storage on the hard drive (at least it used to). If the image created by VMWare or Parallels is on the variable disk space setting, which i think is the default, it will expand as needed without the need for preallocating disk space like you need to in bootcamp. Supposedly, VMWare has near native performance in version 8, so you don't loose much. Though I am not sure how much RAM or how many processors you have to allocate to the image. I am currently assigning all, or all - 1, of the processors to the VMWare, despite the warnings for good performance, but it is super sluggish on Core 2 Duo computers.