switching to a pc (sort of) and I need to find some equivalent packages

March 14, 2007 4:44 PM

For reasons of folly I thought I'd give Windows Vista a go. As a long-time mac user I'm used to relying on the apple community for useful software suggestions and ideas. With windows, I'm not entirely sure where to start so was hoping for suggestions of equivalent software to the following: Unison, Toast, Adium, Transmit, iPhoto, and Stuffit/Other compression utility Low cost is good, but i'll take positive feedback over price tags any day.
posted by nickehsmith to Computers & Internet (29 answers total)

Not sure for Unison. All the rest (except where noted) are free:
Toast -- burnatonce for free, Nero for pay
Adium -- Trillian
Transmit -- Filezilla
iPhoto -- Picasa
Stuffit -- 7-zip
posted by j.edwards at 4:53 PM on March 14, 2007

Dang. You beat me to it. I would just add that I find Nero sufficiently good that I'd keep my PC around just for that. It's not too hard to use and it can burn just about any filesystem standard to just about any circular media using just about any drive it'll fit in.
posted by chairface at 5:25 PM on March 14, 2007

I recommend WinRAR over 7-zip but it comes down to personal preference. There are also a zillion alternatives in the FTP client area. BTW Unison is cross platform.
posted by Rhomboid at 5:34 PM on March 14, 2007

Unless you're using something other than .zip, you don't need a compression utility. It's built into the OS. Frankly the lack of this in OS X drives me insane.
posted by mullingitover at 5:39 PM on March 14, 2007

Note, Stuffit does come in a Windows flavour. If you have a heap of old Mac archives you might need access to it's probably best. It's an ok product, it just doesn't live up to its hype.

Other than 7-zip (which is brilliant, and my favourite) there's IZarc, which handles a huge number of formats.

And an alternative to Trillian is Miranda IM.
posted by krisjohn at 5:42 PM on March 14, 2007

CDBurner XP Pro is a great free program for basic cd and dvd burning.
posted by kaefer at 5:43 PM on March 14, 2007

Or instead of Trillian and Miranda, you can use gaim. (Trillian, btw, is great if you shell out for a subscription, but otherwise no spell checking.)
posted by anaelith at 5:51 PM on March 14, 2007

I like DeepBurner (Free Version) for burning CD/DVDs, and ImgBurn for burning ISO/NRG/BIN, any CD image file.
posted by mattdini at 5:53 PM on March 14, 2007

Deepburner (CD burning software) has a free personal version, and I can vouch for the quality of their software.
posted by spiderskull at 5:58 PM on March 14, 2007

Whoops... looks like mattdini beat me to it.
posted by spiderskull at 5:59 PM on March 14, 2007

An alternative to Trillian/Miranda/gaim is the BitlBee IRC -> IM gateway, if IRC clients (like HydraIRC/Klient) are your thing. For just viewing photos, I like IrfanView
posted by aye at 5:59 PM on March 14, 2007

I kind of dig ExtractNow for a simple, easy unpacker that has a nice, Mac-like UI.

Also, Picasa might be the best program I have ever had on a computer, especially now that they have upped free storage on Web Albums to 1GB. It is the one thing that is keeping me from Switching.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:00 PM on March 14, 2007

I should add that DeepBurner can already burn images. I believe it supports most formats (I have personally done ISO images).
posted by spiderskull at 6:00 PM on March 14, 2007

Unless you're using something other than .zip, you don't need a compression utility. It's built into the OS. Frankly the lack of this in OS X drives me insane.

Uh, right-click on the file and select "Create Archive of xyz". You get a .zip file
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:17 PM on March 14, 2007

My current favourite FTP client is actually a Firefox extension: FireFTP. Small, free, cross-platform, and does everything I want it to.
posted by flabdablet at 6:24 PM on March 14, 2007

You mean Unison the nntp client, right? Before I switched to mac 4 years ago, I had been using Forte Agent. They used to have a free version - I'm not sure if they still do or not.

If you want something just to deal w/ NZBs, go for NZB-o-matic Plus
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 6:29 PM on March 14, 2007

Unison- Xnews: I use Pine at the command line now, but liked xnews a few years ago.

Toast- Nero: Nero is awesome, it does everything I have ever asked of it.

Adium- Gaim. I really don't like Trillian.

StuffIT- IZarc: Free and has handled every format I have thrown at it.

Transmit- WinSCP free and open source.
posted by fief at 6:29 PM on March 14, 2007

I'm also looking desperately for a Windows-equivalent to Panic's Unison OS X Usenet newsreader. Forte is hideously ugly and has a too-steep learning curve, but worst, it doesn't appear to group multipart messages. In fact, few newsreaders on any platform seem to do it. (I'm pretty sure nickehsmith didn't mean the Unison sync program.)
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:13 PM on March 14, 2007

If you use adium, gaim will be second nature. I mean, the two programs shared (some) developers, so just ignore that trillian thing.
posted by TypographicalError at 7:13 PM on March 14, 2007

Sure...Windows has native zip file handling built into the OS, but you might as well say Wordpad is an adequate replacement for a decent word processing program.

Best trick with 7-zip: it will actually decompress most installers. A lot of these are just wrapped Windows Installer files that you can customize (Acrobat's a good example) and some contain executables you'll find you can run without installing at all. Even WinZip chokes on most of these and Windows native zip file handling won't even give you the option when clicking on exe files.
posted by JaredSeth at 7:36 PM on March 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

Thirding 7zip. I also prefer WinSCP over Filezilla.
posted by Mitheral at 8:50 PM on March 14, 2007

Adium -- gaim is a lot lighter-weight and simpler (it doesn't, say, automatically link arbitrary words in your conversations to wikipedia)
Transmit -- Filezilla is a great recommendation, as is WinSCP.
iPhoto -- Windows Photo Gallery is built in to Vista, and it's excellent, a peer to iPhoto (most people aren't familiar with it yet).
Stuffit -- 7-zip is a good suggestion, but for basic .zip needs, you don't need anything except what's built in
posted by anildash at 9:15 PM on March 14, 2007

Frankly the lack of this in OS X drives me insane

Lack? Are you running 10.2? 10.3-onward has it..

BOMArchiveHelper
posted by mrbill at 10:11 PM on March 14, 2007

Might I suggest using Meebo in your web browser as an alternative to Gaim/Trillian ? No need to install anything, as it's all browser based.

Also,Cat Pie Hurts - who recommended Forte Agent - the old free version was called "Free Agent", and does not look like they still offer it. There may be places around the web where you can still find it, though.
posted by stovenator at 10:43 PM on March 14, 2007

There's a list of program alternatives at Open Source Alternative [osalt.com]. The list doesn't list a lot of alternatives, but the well-known ones are there.
posted by Xere at 11:27 PM on March 14, 2007

Gaim over Trillian
WinSCP over Filezilla/FTP
Picasa is OK, but Vista gallery is pretty slick too
7-zip if the built-in stuff doesn't work for you.

Check Sourceforge for any future needs. There's a lot of dinky-looking shareware out for windows, more so than for mac, perhaps, but there's also well-designed stuff, like those mentioned above.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 2:54 PM on March 15, 2007

Response by poster: Thanks for all the help ... I feel like the new kid at school switching operating systems and i'm ahppy to say you've all made the newbie feel welcome ;)
posted by nickehsmith at 6:00 PM on March 15, 2007

Can't believe no-one's mentioned SnagIt for screen captures. It's one of the apps that are keeping me on Windows.

More apps I like: http://softwarethatmakesmehappy.ning.com/
posted by JonathanAquino at 10:17 PM on March 15, 2007

On Iphoto: Picasa is a functional, decent program, but it doesn't compare, in my opinion.
posted by craniac at 10:19 AM on March 16, 2007