Software for switchers from Windows to Mac
By Rockia on Oct 10, 2009 with Comments 0
One of the common questions that my customers asked me was that he/she used a software on Windows and could I suggest a replacement software.
First of all, I have to admit that I can’t possibly know all of the software and I have to understand what functions they really need. For example, if they use Photoshop every day but just use it to crop pictures, then I can suggest something else to fit their needs or teach them some tricks that Mac OS can do that without third party software.
Note: For this post, if the software happen to have dual-platform versions, like Skype or Photoshop, I tend to not list them here as you could find them on the official website.
This post is written with a purpose that I can get some feedback so that the list can be expanded, and therefore others could also be benefited when they are looking for replacement software. The software on Mac OS might not be 100% identical to what are on the Windows, but I will try my best to get the most similar ones on the list; any constructive feedback or recommendations are welcome.
On Windows, you used… |
On Mac, you could use |
|---|---|
| DVD Burning/ Ripping | |
| Nero | Toast Titanium |
| imgBurn | Disk Utilities (Native on Mac) |
| CDBurnerXP InfraRecorder, DeepBurner, JetBee | Burn(Built-in) |
| cladDVD XP, DVD Decrypte, SmartRipper, vStrip | HandBrake, XiliSoft DVD Ripper |
| Internet Tools | |
| Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera | Firefox, Safari, Flock, Opera, OmniWeb,Camino, Google Chrome |
| Outlook Express | Apple Mail |
| Live Messenger | MSN, iChat |
| Miranda IM, Digsby, Pidgin, Trillian Messenger | Adium |
| WAMP | MAMP |
| SmartFTP, CuteFTP, WS-FTP, Filezilla | CyberDuck, Filezilla |
| uTorrent, BitTornado | Transmission, Vuze, |
| mIRC | Colloguy |
| FlashGet | Speed Download, iGetter, Leech, Download Queue, CocoaWget |
| Audio/ Video | |
| Windows Media Player | VLC |
| Windows Movie Maker | iMovie |
| MediaCoder, Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP) | ffmpegX |
| K-Lite Codec Pack | Perian |
| MP3 to iPod Audio Book Converter | AudioBook Maker |
| Baofeng Player (in Chinese only) | mPlayer |
| Audacity | GarageBand |
| Programming | |
| Frontpage (Discontinued) | Kompozer |
| Microsoft Visual C++ | XCode, NetBeans, |
| System Utilities | |
| WinZip, 7-Zip | Mac natively support Zip, Stuffit |
| WinRAR | RAR Expander, Stuffit, UnRarX |
| Launchy, Dash Command, SlickRun | QuickSilver (Discontinued), Google Quick Search Box (Google QSB) |
| MacDrive (To read Mac’s partition) | Paragon NTFS, Macfuse (To read/write NTFS partition) |
| Notepad | TextEdit |
| VirtualBox | Parallels Desktop, VMWare Fusion |
| Bink and Smacker | Time Machine(Native on Leopard and Snow Leopard) |
| Acronis Disk Director | Disk Utilities (Native on Mac) |
| Graphics | |
| Adobe Photoshop | GIMP |
| Manga Studio EX | Comic Life |
| Document Processing | |
| Windows Photo Gallery | iPhoto |
| Microsoft Office 2007 | Apple iWork, Microsoft Office 2008 |
| OpenOffice | NeoOffice |
| QuickBooks, SimplyAccounting | iCompta, MoneyDance, iCash |
