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The amount of free software for the Mac is laughable.

I can't tell if this is a troll post or not. The OP hasn't been back on in a while.

Either way, I think the real problem is with both the comical exaggeration in the thread title and the OP's lack of experience searching for free Mac software.

Back in the dark ages of Mac it was difficult to find "free" apps and alternatives for the Mac but now everything is either cross-platform or free. There is the App Store and plenty of well made free, open source, or donate-ware applications available.

I'm sorry OP, but you're just not searching.

Any subscription app for the Mac is also subscription for the PC and frankly, I like the sub model better. I either pay less upfront or less over time than what the app used to cost. The Adobe Master Collection used to be $2500 and most pros would keep it 3-4 years. At $53 a month over 36 months that's $1908. After 4 years that's $2544.

Again, sorry, but NO. Most titles are cross-platform and free. Free apps and services have long existed (just as Open Office) for both Mac and PC, and actually paying for apps via 1-time payments or subscriptions is NOT a bad thing.
 
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I have yet to find any apps I need to subscribe to. True, I had to pay to update BBEddit and Yojimbo, but Synkron, FastScripts, AppCleaner and Cyberduck were all free updates. Perhaps you should look into using a different suite of software.
 
What are you trying to run? You should have just asked that in the first place, and waste less time.
 
Okay to be fair I do pay yearly for Setapp utilities. I also pay yearly for Office 365. But that's it. I refuse to pay for a email client subscription.

The thing that really bugged me was trying to find a free media player to replace the music app for my local music content. I ended up using foobar2000 which is more limited than on Windows. I really miss MusicBee. Also, I decided on XnViewMP as all the free photo managing apps were terrible.

Otherwise, I am pretty content on what I use. I just notice that when it comes to Open source software that Windows and Linux have more choices.
 
tonyr6 said:
Really the lack of any true free software and I don't mean software that claims it's free but advanced features are locked behind a pay version.

The only free software I can find is already available on Windows and performs terrible on the Mac.
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I image those who create software for macOS would like to eat, provide for their families and put a roof over their collective heads... and a programmer is worthy of his/her hire... blow the cobwebs out of your wallet and pay for what you use.
 
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tonyr6 said:
Okay to be fair I do pay yearly for Setapp utilities. I also pay yearly for Office 365. But that's it. I refuse to pay for a email client subscription.

The thing that really bugged me was trying to find a free media player to replace the music app for my local music content. I ended up using foobar2000 which is more limited than on Windows. I really miss MusicBee. Also, I decided on XnViewMP as all the free photo managing apps were terrible.

Otherwise, I am pretty content on what I use. I just notice that when it comes to Open source software that Windows and Linux have more choices.
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Again, this is just false.

Most of email clients are free. I use Spark and it's free for single users. The paid portions of the app won't work in a solo environment anyway. The mail app isn't that bad, there's gmail, you already have Office 365 which has Outlook .... there's always a web browser and those are free.

I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to use iTunes, but (shrug) there are free (and bad) media players out there but as others have said if you want quality then you'll have to pay.

iPhoto isn't stellar, but XnViewMP is pure horse**** What are you looking for that iPhoto or even Adobe Bridge (both free) can't offer?

There's a disconnect between the features you want and the apps you're choosing.

e.g. you have a Mac, which is touted for its ecosystem, you don't want to use the free apps, you want other free apps, but instead download subpar applications that do less than the free included ones. If you need more advanced features, then I'd question why you are hesitant to pay.
 
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I tried Adobe Bridge caused my MacBook to go up to 100C. I thought it was going to burn out. Uninstall was a pain as it left so much crud behind.
 
tonyr6 said:
I tried Adobe Bridge caused my MacBook to go up to 100C. I thought it was going to burn out. Uninstall was a pain as it left so much crud behind.
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How old is your MacBook, what are the specs, and what's the nature of the photos you're editing?

Where you running any of the software you mentioned above while you ran Bridge?

Asking because Bridge has been notorious for sipping power ever since 2006 when it was buried inside of Photoshop. Heck, we were recommending people to Bridge back when Lightroom was crashing MacPros for eating up too much RAM.

Are you looking for a photo manager that has metadata and batch processing functionality?
 
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