Five Interesting Mac Apps Worth Checking Out - August 2018

[keysofanxiety]

I didn’t say it solved everything, I said when I ran it I got back to the same performance levels as a fresh boot. I had called Apple several times before this particular incident because of how poorly the system ran, but I had already typed a short story on an iPhone using my fat fingers and my internet speed problem wasn’t relevant to the actual article.

Since you seem interested, the ultimate problem behind my computers slow performance, which is still true today, was that I used the upgrade computer feature to copy files and programs from my old iMac to my new one. My old iMac was (actually is, it still works) a 2008. Although I had kept the OS up to date I hadn’t done the same with most programs, so moving them to my new machine was probably a mistake. Another recommendation by several Apple techs was on a major OS upgrade do a fresh install and not just a system upgrade. I hadn’t done that before because I didn’t know what programs I could potentially lose, since I hadn’t stayed current with them, and the easy path seemed to be just performing an upgrade.

Since my connection speed is now actually in the 10-15 mb range with the new OS release I may do the fresh install if that is still an option. I don’t remember that question in the last few new OS systems released but I’m not as nervous about trying now that I have a fairly reliable speed.

Migration Assistant slowed it down from previous OS clutter, I’ve gotcha. Often happens.

An Apple representative recommended “Dr. Cleaner” — no. I think you tried it and it seemingly sped up your machine. Could have disabled startup items for all we know and made a big difference.

The first post seemed to imply your brand-new Mac was running slowly and an Apple representative suggested a cleaning app which was a wonder cure. It now transpires it wasn’t a fresh OS and you tried the app off your own back which in your experience seemed to help.

You’ll appreciate why I found that disingenuous and people might get the wrong impression if they read your first post. I still maintain cleaner apps should be avoided unless you know what they’re doing and know what you’re doing.

 

[EdT]

Migration Assistant slowed it down from previous OS clutter, I’ve gotcha. Often happens.

An Apple representative recommended “Dr. Cleaner” — no. I think you tried it and it seemingly sped up your machine. Could have disabled startup items for all we know and made a big difference.

The first post seemed to imply your brand-new Mac was running slowly and an Apple representative suggested a cleaning app which was a wonder cure. It now transpires it wasn’t a fresh OS and you tried the app off your own back which in your experience seemed to help.

You’ll appreciate why I found that disingenuous and people might get the wrong impression if they read your first post. I still maintain cleaner apps should be avoided unless you know what they’re doing and know what you’re doing.

The only thing I run, even now, is the memory cleaner portion of the Dr Cleaner program. It has the delete unused/duplicate files menu selection but the one or 2 times I ran it the files it found were not just duplicate photos or audio but a lot of files whose names and extensions I didn’t recognize and I don’t delete files without knowing what they are for, so I don’t use it for that.

I do have Time Machine backup but if I do a fresh install with a newer OS I don’t know if I can restore to an older OS backup. And with slow connection speeds I’ve been nervous even if all I need to do was redownload programs from the App Store. And I have 1 or 2 that I didn’t get from the App Store originally, 1Password being one of them. It’s there now but originally you could buy/download it direct from the company. I still don’t know if I lose it through an OS upgrade what I would need to do to reinstall it.

 

[kuwxman]

I’m a farmer and needless to say I check the weather multiple times a day. You seem to have an idea about weather apps. Which do find the most accurate? I previously used wunderground but they seem to have changed something and the forecasts don’t seem to be as good as they used to be.

I will always suggest using the National Weather Service (NWS) above anything else, especially for profit weather services like The Weather Channel/Weather Underground and forecast.io. The NWS doesn't have an app, but you can add their site (mobile.weather.gov) for your location as a bookmark to your homescreen. It works nearly as well as any app would. The current weather, five day forecast, and radar is all available. The link at the bottom of this post shows you how to do it.

Besides the NWS, my go to weather app is 1Weather. I also use RadarScope a lot for radar checks.

NWS Mobile how-to: https://imgur.com/a/B3nrrZT

1Weather: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/1weather-forecast-and-radar/id1044809694?mt=8

RadarScope: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/radarscope/id288419283?mt=8

 

[mixel]

If you click Manage, you get an actionable, comprehensive list of everything, sorted by size, separated by categories via sidebar.

Huh. So you do, haha. I think I knew about that once and totally forgot about it. That’s actually really nice compared to the apps offering similar functionality, though I like how CleanMyMac (etc) makes it easier to remove config and other cruft flies when trashing an app.

I still think everyone should try things like Disk Map though, it can be eye opening because you can more easily see the cumulative size of multiple smaller files in a way that makes it easily manageable.

 

[Jack Sawyer]

I'd have to say my all-time favorite program in life is Comic Strip Factory by David Durkee. I've been using this since the 1980's on a Mac SE when it was monochrome. I restored an old SE and contacted David and through good fortune he wrote a color version. I've created 65 comics with it so far and he posts them on facebook. I can't say enough good about this program. It's easy enough for kids to use but has very powerful editing tools and you can use any background you'd like from photos to screenshots of games. His customer support is outstanding. Highly recommend.

 

[daven85]

Pretty weird list to write. Sounds was asked to put a list together in 5 minutes, and didn't do much research.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I wanted to clarify Dan's statements about Canary Mail. Canary does offer end to end encryption. It is turned on by default. However, in order to make use of the default settings, the person you are sending any emails to via Canary mail must also use Canary mail, in order to see the text of any emails they receive from someone using default Canary settings. With encryption settings set to manual, any recipients of Canary based mail must have a public encryption key for the specific account they are receiving mail from, in order to properly view the mail from a account set up as encrypted in Canary Mail.

In my opinion, Dan should have been more clear with the security comments.

Edited to add: Dr. Cleaner is not needed. Mac has built-in memory management ability.

And if someone cares about privacy, they should think twice about using any Google product or application, such as the Messenger chrome extension Dan spoke of.

 

[RightMACatU]

Dr Cleaner... like Eminem sang "giant sacks of lyin' dog ****". Installed it and ran Malwarebytes Anti-Malware only to get a "PUB.BrowserHistoryStealer"

 

[TacticalSS]

Dr. Cleaner was identified as stealing browser history and has since been removed from the App Store.

 

[RightMACatU]

Dr. Cleaner was identified as stealing browser history and has since been removed from the App Store.

... and my MBP
Thanks for confirming.

 

[gustavoarielms]

I read this https://www.zdnet.com/article/trend-micro-says-sorry-after-apps-grabbed-mac-browser-history/ regarding dr cleaner app. I was surprise I couldn't open it after updating to mojave. After I read this I uninstalled all trend micro apps I had.

 

[rmpbklyn]

chuck i good but only allows one account for free. I like the title grouping
[doublepost=1561909026][/doublepost]

These types of apps are borderline malware. The Mac OS does all the cleaning needed. If you feel there is a memory problem, just restart your computer. I get paid to uninstall this type of app because of the problems they cause on my clients Mac's. They are not as bad as full blown malware or ransomware and they are NOT needed.

Former Apple employee, independent Mac Consultant for over 25 years and a Mac owner since they came out in 1984

No it does not do all the cleaning LOL. I had to write my own scripts just to delete all the log, languages, and chrome/firefox caches.
[doublepost=1561909098][/doublepost]

Huh. So you do, haha. I think I knew about that once and totally forgot about it. That’s actually really nice compared to the apps offering similar functionality, though I like how CleanMyMac (etc) makes it easier to remove config and other cruft flies when trashing an app.

I still think everyone should try things like Disk Map though, it can be eye opening because you can more easily see the cumulative size of multiple smaller files in a way that makes it easily manageable.

also disk inventory and jdiskreport (java app) are good. ncdu is barebones( can get with brew /homebrew installer)

I will always suggest using the National Weather Service (NWS) above anything else, especially for profit weather services like The Weather Channel/Weather Underground and forecast.io. The NWS doesn't have an app, but you can add their site (mobile.weather.gov) for your location as a bookmark to your homescreen. It works nearly as well as any app would. The current weather, five day forecast, and radar is all available. The link at the bottom of this post shows you how to do it.

Besides the NWS, my go to weather app is 1Weather. I also use RadarScope a lot for radar checks.

NWS Mobile how-to: https://imgur.com/a/B3nrrZT

1Weather: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/1weather-forecast-and-radar/id1044809694?mt=8

RadarScope: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/radarscope/id288419283?mt=8

icalendar

curious... what about Spark don't you like?

does it have subject/sender/date headers? I like sylheed and thunderbird because I can sort by the header columns