As a new Mac owner, I have been very pleased with all the built in Applications that came with my new iMac. The iLife suite truly rocks! However, there is one application that Apple failed to provide (and should). A utility to fully uninstall applications.
Yes, with the Mac we are told that it’s as simple as dragging the application icon to the Trash. Many times it is that easy. And many times it is not. I wish I would have known that before installing StuffIt (BTW– don’t install StuffIt!). Firefox was permanently affected by always offering me the option to use StuffIt for compressed file downloads even though I DRAGGED THE DARN STUFFIT APPLICATION ICON TO THE TRASH!!!! Yes, I intentionally yelled. It most certainly did not remove all vestiges of the application.
Being an old Linux hand, and an even older (dare I say it) Microsoft Windows hand, I’m used to there being ‘hold-over’ material when you install an application. Windows has the “Uninstall application” feature to take care of this, and Linux has the option to erase it via RPM (rpm -e <package>) or someother install/remove utility.
The Mac’s ability to remove an application is limited, and certainly not automated for those larger apps that inject their pref files, et cetera, all over the place. That’s where AppCleaner steps in. Instead of dragging that icon to the Trash icon, you simply open AppCleaner and either choose it from the list, or drag it onto the AppCleaner application. It searches for everything, and when you remove it– everything is removed. No vestiges. WooHoo!
Apple guys! I love ya, but someone needs to talk to the creator of AppCleaner and get this baby bundled in your next OS release!
Caio!
