Software (good/bad, what you use, free options, Q&A)

DT

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Figured I'd make it a more general thread (per the title), but specifically, I am digging on all the new tab/window organizational features in the recent versions of Chrome (Mac). You can pin a tab, group tabs, and for a window, name it, and then easily move a tab to a window by name. Just super handy, especially for someone like me who regularly has like 40+ tabs open at once.
 

SuperMatt

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I am using Vivaldi which has incredible amounts of customizability. I use it as my Chromium browser for testing websites … no way I’m using the official Google Chrome browser. That’s a guarantee I will run out of RAM and lose all my private data to Google…
 

DT

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I am actually rather conservative when it comes to software and I actually don't have a whole lot beyond what is bundled with my Macs at the time I buy them. I have a few photography-related software programs and that's about it.....

You picked up a new M1 machine didn't you? The Wife is the same way, she's only using the "bundled" apps (I was going to install a few dev tools for a backup machine, but I got my MBP fixed for free). We're using Google Apps (through our Biz Account) for office related needs (thought that's just browser based)
 

DT

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I am using Vivaldi which has incredible amounts of customizability. I use it as my Chromium browser for testing websites … no way I’m using the official Google Chrome browser. That’s a guarantee I will run out of RAM and lose all my private data to Google…

I never run out of RAM with Chrome, but I'm also still running 10.14.6 (Mojave) as I've heard it's Big Sur that's been experiencing some issues. I mean, like right now, I have 60-something tabs open, in 5 different windows, and also running: Safari (just a few tabs), Postman (dev tool), VSCode (MacOS), Messages, Photos, Sketch, several term windows, plus a Windows 10 VM running MS-SQL, IIS, and two instances of Visual Studio.
 

Clix Pix

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You picked up a new M1 machine didn't you? The Wife is the same way, she's only using the "bundled" apps (I was going to install a few dev tools for a backup machine, but I got my MBP fixed for free). We're using Google Apps (through our Biz Account) for office related needs (thought that's just browser based)
Yep, typing on that M1 MBP right now, actually..... Sweet little machine, and so speedy and cool! The extra software programs that I have installed in here are fewer than on the 2018 Intel-based MPB, but mostly they're concerned with various aspects of photo editing, etc.
 

Alli

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I used Chrome exclusively up until Safari got Keychain integration. I love so many of Chrome's features including, as DT mentioned, being able to pin tabs. But Safari is a resource hog, and Keychain is slowly coming to Chrome. I'll go back to it soon. I've just become too dependent on Keychain.
 

Eric

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Figured I'd make it a more general thread (per the title), but specifically, I am digging on all the new tab/window organizational features in the recent versions of Chrome (Mac). You can pin a tab, group tabs, and for a window, name it, and then easily move a tab to a window by name. Just super handy, especially for someone like me who regularly has like 40+ tabs open at once.
The group tabs in Chrome seemed like a great feature but the fact that it won't let you save what you've grouped (upon closing and re-opening) makes it pretty much useless for me, unless I'm missing how to do this.
 

Runs For Fun

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I've never been a fan of Chrome. I hate it. Firefox is my favorite. Been using Firefox since the 1.5 days. There's an extension that's been around for a while now for Firefox that does tab groups and they are saved across sessions.

 

SuperMatt

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I've never been a fan of Chrome. I hate it. Firefox is my favorite. Been using Firefox since the 1.5 days. There's an extension that's been around for a while now for Firefox that does tab groups and they are saved across sessions.

Vivaldi browser has had superior tab management for a while. It also runs the latest sites quite nicely on my older Mac with 10.11.6, whereas Safari isn’t updated for that old OS and some newer sites don’t load right.

 

DT

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I originally used Chrome vs. MS options, then went Mac, used Safari, it was pretty fast, low resource requirements ...

... but, I needed to do two things: 1) sync passwords/tabs/bookmarks across both Winders™ and MacOS (formerly OSX), because I was running multiple machine / bootcamp, and 2) doing development/design work and needed to validate against the only relevant non-MS browser (at least in terms of my clients)

Also, Chrome provides some kickass dev/debug tools, including auth/cookie integration with my [primary] API test tool, and plugins for testing React/Redux.

I no longer need Windows Chrome, but just sort of stuck with it, like that the bookmarks/passwords are all audit-able through the Google Biz account admin, and I even use Chrome on iOS/iPadOS. Google services through a paid account (vs. "free" Gmail) are significantly different in terms of exposure/privacy,
 

DT

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For Mac folks: I use a super handy app called Tot. It's a sync'ed clipboard/pasteboard for text, stays resident up in the menu bar, has multiple "tabs" (dots, really), can float, saves the state, very super handy for keeping random text, sort of interstitial C&Ps, or thought snippets, it's color coded, the snippet window can detach and float around, it has a (paid) iOS app, but the MacOS app is free. Very super highly recommended if you're like me and you deal with 1000 tiny bits of textual information day-to-day.

 

SuperMatt

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For Mac folks: I use a super handy app called Tot. It's a sync'ed clipboard/pasteboard for text, stays resident up in the menu bar, has multiple "tabs" (dots, really), can float, saves the state, very super handy for keeping random text, sort of interstitial C&Ps, or thought snippets, it's color coded, the snippet window can detach and float around, it has a (paid) iOS app, but the MacOS app is free. Very super highly recommended if you're like me and you deal with 1000 tiny bits of textual information day-to-day.

I like that app too!
 

Runs For Fun

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For Mac folks: I use a super handy app called Tot. It's a sync'ed clipboard/pasteboard for text, stays resident up in the menu bar, has multiple "tabs" (dots, really), can float, saves the state, very super handy for keeping random text, sort of interstitial C&Ps, or thought snippets, it's color coded, the snippet window can detach and float around, it has a (paid) iOS app, but the MacOS app is free. Very super highly recommended if you're like me and you deal with 1000 tiny bits of textual information day-to-day.

Oh I’ve been looking for something like this!
 

DT

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VirtualBox all the way. Parallels is a scam.

VB isn't nearly stout enough / feature rich to accomodate my VM needs, poor graphic performance, missing several key features, as well as a couple of slick options like Coherence mode in Parallels (which is mostly how I use it).

I've been using Parallels for ~10 years, pretty much non-stop, it's open now in fact, my machine runs 24/7 with that VM open (current uptime is ~76 days). I occasionally do a quick re-review of alternatives, though mostly the only other real commercial product in this space (VMWare).

In terms of pricing, I upgrade Parallels every 2 years at the very most, and I almost always score a deal through Parallels direct, or some kind of software bundle where I buy (and sell off the rest), or buy it from some who bought a bundle but didn't want Parallels.

I'm using the non-subscription model, mine will continue to function. I have an extra license sitting here I picked up for $10 from someone on MR, my last license was $20, I'm into it for about $30-40 over 3-4 years, and I've used it to bill, well, A LOT :D The cost is so trivial for my business, I would save more money by not printing ... and I print about once every 2 months and that's an Amazon return label :D
 

SuperMatt

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VB isn't nearly stout enough / feature rich to accomodate my VM needs, poor graphic performance, missing several key features, as well as a couple of slick options like Coherence mode in Parallels (which is mostly how I use it).

I've been using Parallels for ~10 years, pretty much non-stop, it's open now in fact, my machine runs 24/7 with that VM open (current uptime is ~76 days). I occasionally do a quick re-review of alternatives, though mostly the only other real commercial product in this space (VMWare).

In terms of pricing, I upgrade Parallels every 2 years at the very most, and I almost always score a deal through Parallels direct, or some kind of software bundle where I buy (and sell off the rest), or buy it from some who bought a bundle but didn't want Parallels.

I'm using the non-subscription model, mine will continue to function. I have an extra license sitting here I picked up for $10 from someone on MR, my last license was $20, I'm into it for about $30-40 over 3-4 years, and I've used it to bill, well, A LOT :D The cost is so trivial for my business, I would save more money by not printing ... and I print about once every 2 months and that's an Amazon return label :D
I’ve experienced seriously flaky behavior (VM totally fried; hope you backed up! Bugs? Just wait until the next version, maybe we’ll fix it then) from Parallels in the past. Its ease of use and Mac-Windows integration is hard to beat though. The latest version of VMWare’s fusion has the (in my experience) solid reliability of VMWare with enough Mac-Windows integration to make it usable for the average person.
 
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