Essential is, of course, a relative term, but here we'll collect an ongoing list of popular utilities and tools. This is replacing the aging list with a fresh new coat of paint This list is in a perpetual state of progress, so feel free to suggest new apps, and I'll try to collect everything here at the top. Anyhoo, on to the list:

Interface Customization

• ShapeShifter - Safe and speedy theme changer with external application changing - $20
• CandyBar - Icon manager and packager. Reads iContainers. - $12.95
• ThemePark - OS X theme creation software. - $20
• Konfabulator - Desktop application featuring "widgets" you can add to represent anything from games to system information. LOTS of options available - $25
• Can Combine Icons - Allows Mac OS X users to create impressive customized icons within minutes, by using icons and artwork already available. - $10

MenuBar Extras

• WeatherPop/WeatherPop Advance - Displays the weather in excruciating detail in your menu bar - Free (Advance version - $8.00)
• Meteo - Displays the weather in excruciating detail in your menu bar. - Free + Open Source
• MenuMeters - Display all sorts of nerdy information in your menu bar, such as memory usage, net activity, and cpu load. - Free + Open Source
• WinSwitch - Fast User Switching menu bar replacement. Saves space and adds features - Free + Open Source
• BluePhoneMenu - Watches your phone over BlueTooth for new calls or text messages. Can control your phone, too. - Free
• Sailing Clicker - Control your Mac with your phone. Tons of plugins and extras available. Good way to control iTunes for your AirPort Express - $19.95

Browsers

• Camino - Browser based on the Mozilla engine, but designed for OS X - Free + Open Source
• OmniWeb 5 - Safari-based browser with loads of extras - $29.95
• Shiira - Safari-based browser aiming to be better, faster, stronger. - Free + Open Source
• PDF Browser Plugin - View PDFs in your browser without the need to load up Preview. VERY fast. - Free for personal/academic use
• Word Browser Plugin - View Word DOCs in your browser - Free
• Firefox - Firefox 0.9 is the award winning preview of Mozilla's next generation browser. - Free + Open Source
• iLink - bookmark manager designed specifically for people who use more than one browser. - $15

Chat

• Proteus - Well-polished multi-protocol IM client built on the GAIM library - $15
• AdiumX - Alpha version of the popular AIM alternative for OS X with multi-protocol support - Free + Open Source
• Fire - Fire is an open source, multiplatform instant messenger client based on freely available libraries for each "service." - Free + Open Source
• MSN Messenger - The official client from MS. Supports some things that the other clients do not yet. - Free
• iProfile - Allows you to edit and add a profile to your AIM name in iChat - Free

Developement

• BBEdit - THE text editor. Considered the best on any platform. - $179
• XCode - Part of the Developer Tools. You should have a CD of this with your Mac, but you should also download the latest version - Free
• CocoaMySQL - MySQL database frontend - Free + Open Source
• Fugu - Since I figure only developer-types would make the most use of SFTP/SCP, I've listed this here. Nice frontend for SCP with external file editing (edit files "live" on the server over SSH) - Free + Open Source
• SSHKeyChain - Manage SSH keys and have them automatically loaded. Never have to type in an SSH password again - Free + Open Source
• SubEthaEdit - A Rendezvous based, collaborative and distributed text editor. - Free
• CSSEdit - A GUI and text-based CSS editor. - $24.99

FTP

• Transmit - Another app so natural, you'll think Apple made it. Simply the best FTP client. Period. - $24.95
• CuteFTP 2.0 - The excellent Windows ftp client...but for OS X. - $29.99
• Interarchy - $39.00
• Fetch - $25.00

IRC

• Colloquy - IRC client with a very "natural" OS X feel - Free + Open Source
• iRC - $15.00
• Crikey! - $16.00
• Ircle - $20.00
• MacIrssi - OS X IRC client based on the *nix IRC client irssi - free
• X-Chat Aqua - Port of XChat for UNIX/GTK+/X Windows - free + Open Source
• Conversation - An IRC client for those not familiar with IRC commands - free
• Snak - Powerful, feature-rich IRC client - $20

Usenet Newsreaders

• Unison - The ultra-cool Usenet browser, with lots of focus on downloading. Made by the same guys that made Transmit, so it's extra slick! - $24.95

Quicklaunch

• LaunchBar - A quick search of everything on your computer, hit Command+Space, type in a few letters, and drill down to the thing you need. Very neat and useful. - $19.95
• DragThing - Launcher palette for files, folders, disks, servers - $29.00
• Quicksilver - launcher and personal data manager - free
• Butler - launcher, bookmark manager - $19.95

Neato Apps

• Desktop Manager - Virtual Desktop manager with tons of neat transition effects. Don't worry about the Alpha warning, it works just swimingly! - Free + Open Source
• Watson - A Do-It-All application to search, find, and manage your only information. Search Google, track eBay items, track shipments, search PriceGrabber, etc etc. There is TONS to do in this app. - $29
• ecto - Desktop blogging client for MacOSX and Windows, supporting a wide range of weblog systems, such as TypePad, MovableType, WordPress, Drupal, Nucleus, Blogger, and more - $17.95
• NetNewsWire - News feed reader and aggregator. Has a bunch of nice extras, such as blog posting. - $39.95
• NewsFire - Another news reader by the guy that did Aquasition - $18.99
• Mail Appetizer - Displays a little transparent popup window of a message when you get new mail. - Free

Media

• VLC - Media player with lots of format support options - Free + Open Source
• MPlayerOSX - Another media player with lots of format support options. Based on MPlayer - Free + Open Source
• Audio Hijack Pro - Record any audio source coming going through your Mac. Good for stream ripping. - $30

P2P (warez is bad, m'kay?)

• Transmission - Transmission is a free, lightweight BitTorrent client. It features a simple, intuitive interface on top on an efficient, cross-platform back-end - Free + Open Source
• Tomato Torrent - An alternative torrent client - Free + Open Source
• BitTorrent - The newest client works more like a bittorrent manager and is rather nice. - Free + Open Source
• Poisoned - Multi-Network app, primarily used for OpenFT, but also has basic Kazaa support - Free + Open Source
• mlMac - Mutli-Network frontend for mlDonkey. Supports most P2P networks out there - Free + Open Source
• Acquisition - Gnutella client. Considered one of the best designed OS X apps around by some - $15
• LimeWire - Java-based Gnutella client - Basic version free, Pro version $18.88

Finder Replacements

• Path Finder - a comprehensive file browser for Mac OS X, which combines the best of Apple's Finder (viewing, moving, and manipulating your files) with some powerful, integrated utilities - $34
• Macintosh Explorer - Macintosh Explorer provides an alternative method of browsing your hard drives. As well, it provides a familiar interface for file navigation for Windows users converting to the Mac - $15.95

Feel free to post any additional apps below, and I'll try to add them all to the main list

Reserved for future expansion

wow very nice list however timdorr , are there any free theme changers for osx ? ( im considering buying a mac , thats why i ask )

LimeWire is very nice for OS X.

Not really. There's ThemeChanger, but just about all the themes released nowadays are in guiKit format, which is only supported by ShapeShifter right now.

acquisition - one of the best p2p apps for osx, $15
winswitch - for people with long names & FUS

Added the P2P apps (including Acquisition)

aMSN - More features than the official MSN Client - http://amsn.sourceforge.net/

what about Tomato for Bittorrent on Mac ? Quite good until now.

BTW if anybody knows about a better Bittorrent client for Mac, please let us know.

iBatt - great for PowerBook & iBook owners. This application will give you a general idea of how much life is left in the battery overall and provides advanced information Demo quits 10 minutes after running (which is plenty if you just need to check the status of your battery)

Transmit FTP Access - $25
NetNewsWire RSS feed Reader, version 2 coming out soon - $40
PulpFiction RSS feed Reader thats really like reading email - $25
LaunchBar 4 its like the run command on windows, expect even better. - (version 4 in beta so no pricing yet)

Azureus with Safepeer

as for other progs that are a must-have

FTPeel ftp client with mirror support - 19 dollars

Audio Hijack Pro records and enhances audio from any source - 30 dollars

iEatBrainz Uses MusicBrainz (musicbrainz.org) to fix your mp3 and aac tags in iTunes after they've been ripped using acoustic matchings. - free

iTMS Extractor saves music videos and movie trailers from itunes to hard drive - free

iTunes Catalog iTunes Catalog allows you to easily play a song, view album covers, get song lyrics, buy music from the iTunes Music Store or Amazon.com, or search dozens of different music websites. You can even define your own links! Then, you can embed your choice of these links in web catalogs, so everyone can find out all about the music you're listening to. You can also upload your playlist to musicmobz.com - 10 dollars

PhoneAgent For Sony Ericsson t610/t630/t616/and z600 users. Phonebook, SMS, MMS, Theme, and File Exchange program - 30 dollars

Shapeshifter
Candybar
Themepark
Photoshop
Illustrator
Adium
VLC
Pixadex
Transmit

Use guiKitty (free) from Unsanity to decompile guiKits, then use Duality to apply the theme. Kind of a pain, but its free. Best option is to just spend the $20 for ShapeShifter, you can easily remake a miniscule $20.

Shiira: Shiira is a web browser based on Web Kit and written in Cocoa. The goal of the Shiira Project is to create a browser that is better and more useful than Safari.

aMSN is horrible
http://www.panic.com/unison - for Usenet access

I just gotta add some apps that haven't been mentioned.

MaxiMice - http://www.catchysoftware.com
Im so happy i found this software - its great for those who uses and loves the one-button apple mouse. It scrolls Cocoa apps by holding down command and moving the mouse just a bit down or up - and scrolls at different speeds depending on how much you moved the mouse - quirky explanation

X-Tunes - http://www.pol-online.net/
Still the best and unobtrusive iTuns Controller there is. Sadly it isn't developed anymore.

I used to use X-Tunes, but SizzlingKeys4iTunes is even better.

Tried SizzlingKeys4iTunes - its not better
Well, they work in somewhat different ways so its just a personal preference i guess.

Added iProfile to the list because I think it's something a LOT of people bitch about

Firefox should be added to the browsers category.

XJournal if you're a LiveJournal user.

Carracho for P2P.

Alarm Clock Pro is rad for what it does.

Create a Bootable CD with BootCD 0.6
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/15196

Only works with Panther.

woow great list! it will really helpfull when I get Mac

add kismac. It is a great wireless app for the mac. It's good to go warwalking/driving with.

DiskWarrior?

Cheap alternative to Photo Elements:
PhotoEdit
http://www.miennetwork.com/software/paintfx.html

They also have a video editor:
http://www.miennetwork.com/software/mediaedit.html

I saw boxed sets of this software in London Drugs.

http://hornware.com/sharepoints/

Not exactly. The current version works with Panther, however earlier versions are still available for Jaguar and 10.1.

BootCD homepage

how about quicksilver?

For just downloading, Unison is OK, however if you intend to post anything, Unison won't do it (yet). The best combination for that is Thoth (newsreader) and Osiris (autoposter). Unfortunately, Thoth is no longer being developed, but Osiris will also work with MTNewswatcher.

Second on Quicksilver. Great app.

Cocktail http://www.macosxcocktail.com/

For those Windows converts with a lot WMA files:
EasyWMA - http://www.carrafix.com/EasyWMA/

Only works with non-DRMed WMA files.

Anyone know of an FTP Host/Server. On PC i used to use G6, but can't find anything like this for Mac OS X, can onlyl find clients.

System Preferences | Sharing | FTP Access.
Activate and enjoy!

Create Install DVD or slipstream installs of Panther.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/syst...ties/slipy.html

Anyone know of an good free AV for mac 10.3.4?

PureFTPd Manager is quite nice too...

http://jeanmatthieu.free.fr/pureftpd/index.html

This is sweet, nice find

New version http://www.crabbyapplesoftware.com/

No one tried F10 Launch Studio?

LOL Babelizer is a fun toy which used bablefish to convert back and forth between two languages.

Try "You can ring my bell." or "think different" into Korean.

Versiontracker.com

Did someone mention Handbrake, because if not, they should have. It's a superb DVD-ripping application.

Remember, no sharing though!

GNU Mail - Alternative to Mail.app
http://www.collaboration-world.com/cgi-bin...ndex.cgi?pid=2/

It works with both Mac OSX and GNU Step on linux.

Some people say it is faster than Mail.app.

Address Book Exporter.

Crucial for me to keep both my Address Book upto date (for Phone / iPod) and then my Gmail contacts upto date (Import...). It would be nice if there was a way to sync Gmail contacts rather than delete and re import, but its better than manual inserting them...

Might have to look at this then... Might be better suited... Hmmm..

http://macupdate.com/info.php/id/15220

Edit - I just read it doesn't allow you to select Address Book groups, ONLY the whole book... Maybe my original suggestion is better after all...

i haven't read the entire thread, but VLC and FINK will get you everywhere

oh, and the apple X11 so you can run linux apps with fink...

PDF Browser Plugin lets you view your .pdf document in a browser window. Tested on Firefox and Safari. This is a must for anyone in college, who has to view like 10 .pdf documents everyday.

Can't believe nobody mentioned this yet ... Just tried it and like it very much.

Ecto - http://ecto.kung-foo.tv/
ecto is a feature-rich desktop blogging client for MacOSX and Windows, supporting a wide range of weblog systems, such as Blogger, Blojsom, Drupal, MovableType, Nucleus, TypePad, WordPress, and more. ecto is the successor of the wildly popular Kung-Log, which has been in use by thousands of Mac users and which earned a 4.5 mice rating in the MacWorld July 2003 issue as well as high ratings at VersionTracker.com and MacUpdate.com.

SubEthaEdit - http://codingmonkeys.de/
With SubEthaEdit you can. The idea of collaborative editing has been researched for years, with notable results. But now for the first time it has been implemented in a way you actually want to use: A sophisticated technique allows all users to type anywhere in the text without locking parts of the text for other users, making SubEthaEdit just as easy to use as a traditional text editor