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Safari. I love this browser.

Edited 2007-11-23 16:20 UTC

We are all Mac at my house, and my favorite app there is really the one-two punch of Transmit and SubEthaEdit. Since I can only choose one app, I suppose I have to boil it down to one app that by itself gives me the most power, so I'm going to say Paint.net for Windows, which I use at work. This powerful tool is my favorite quick way to edit and create images without having to be a pro and without the complications of Photoshop. Did I mention it's totally free??

Firefox

I really like this browser, I only run Linux in the office and at home and the latest release 2.0.0.9 in F7 & F8 however the version on my laptop running RHEL5.1 is like 1.5 something or anothers.

SSH

i think Google is app too so is my killer one

I can't go to sleep until my computer can run Cubase and LyX.

Konqueror, the only app I really need.

Gorillas.bas

Latex

Linux Terminal Server Project because I like my my terminals totally silent and no local maintenance.

figlet sup dudes | cowsay -n

Adium for me. I don't need video/audio chat so I'm perfectly fine with the minimum.

A Java IDE without replacement.

iTunes <3

mh, a kind of vote would be nice, so we could the what's the topmost killer app

Screen, always the first app I load up and just so useful.

vim and zsh

amaroK, because no other media player can compare!

OpenSSH, I would be stuck hooking up a null serial cable without it..

OpenBSD, I would be on bare metal without it.

screen

Utorrent >:]

Kile, a LaTeX editor for KDE. I've used some Windows ones, and for me, they don't compare.

VNC or some equivalent...

Vim

Norton/Volkov/Windows/Total/Midnight Commander

The greatest thing since sliced bread

Maybe "geeky", but gcc changed the world.

I will buy any platform where runs al least one episode of the Super Robot Wars Series ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Robot_Wars

R-project. ...and I'm still waiting for the R-OS!

OpenSSH. Literally the only app that I use every single day. And if I could have two apps, it would be OpenSSH + GNU Screen. That is a killer combo.

Safari here too (Though I use FireFox at work).

I think this is the most significant new application released for MS Office users since Outlook... Home users will yawn and rightly so - it offers very little for them. But for anyone who has to manage and dissect alot of misc. data on a daily basis it is fricking bliss.

It lets you effortlessly organize and re-organized notes from meetings, personal notes, software documentation, files, picture, schematics, websites, practically anything. And it does so without getting in your way.

It doesn't do anything particularly new - but its the first app of its kind that (I think) gets its all just right. Highly recommended for anyone whose time is valuable and just wants to keep track of things (not time - that is what Outlook is for - OneNote organizes data) without alot of complication...

I would also like to add Gmail. Say what you want about Google, and their GMail app, but it changed the entire webmail platform, and opened up everyone's eyes to the 5 mb limit that other providers such as hotmail and yahoo provided at the time, and made it unacceptable in the eyes of geeks everywhere. Gmail changed all of that.

Vim..

i use it on unix (mainly OpenBSD), windows, macosx. Rarely i use vi. I think it's the most useful program for me.
Also, i vote for ``sudo'', ``nc'' (netcat), ``thunderbird'', ``firefox'', ``slrn'', ``psi'', ``gqview'', ``mplayer''

Yeah, it'd be vim, although psql (postgres) and cowsay are closing in....

Best torrent client on KDE

Have quite a few but I would give the edge to Firefox.

Hope sometime they do a mini-poll or something in short answer, why do you like computers.

Edited 2007-11-23 16:58

I've been using it since 2001 (Opera 5.10) and painfully miss it whenever I have to switch to something else.

GNU BASH. I refuse to use a computer without bash. (at work I have static binaries for AIX, Solaris and HP-Ux hehe)

Eclipse does it for me...

It's either GIMP or Emacs, for totally different reasons, i'm usually happy using nano for text editing but emacs covers so many bases i could do without a number of other apps if using it.

For image editing I know gimp so well and work with it effectively enough to produce better results than a lot or people might from competing apps, it fits my needs well and i have a sensible workflow centered around it.

All this aside, in today's permanently connected world i could just name firefox as my favourite, considering the rich AJAX and Flash apps available online this could provide for my music and video needs in many ways.

... and say an SSH client and modern web browser. I have my favoured clients, but I don't mind switching if something better comes out. But I will ignore a platform unless it provides me reliable SSH and HTTP connectivity, which I think is a good way to define killer applications.

... it's needed. Better than the alternatives.

Photoshop was close but Opera takes the cake. I just don't enjoy browsing as much when I have to use a different browser. Here's to hoping standards compliance of websites picks up a notch!

If I were to be sent on a deserted island and be allowed to bring only one cool app, that would be Amarok )

Ma favourite is:

/sbin/shutdown

Sorry.

screen, putty and traceroute

mail (apple)

Although there are several I use daily, Muckclient is the one that I would be really sad without.

Amarok

Using Opera hours and hours a day since 2002

While most of the google apps are cool, I'd have to say Gmail is one I wouldn't want to live without.

VLC media player

vim is the mostly used tool for me.

Cubic IDE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_IDE

If I had to choose one, I'd say Toast Titanium 8.03. Compared to other software out there, its pretty damn good.

But if I had to choose one which I used all the time - in otherwords, and application that 'makes or breaks the platform' for me, I'd go for Pages.

I use Pages a lot, it is just a super application. I tend to treat my word processor like a DTP, so it works perfectly for what I need. I can pick up a picture, plonk it anywhere on the page. Its just so easy to get things done - easy, but not easy with stupid things like clippy getting in the way.

Eclipse, Amarok, Azureus and MPlayer

Azureus and Opera are my #1

I'm a Linux user, and my killer app doesn't yet exist for Linux (though there are Windows equivalents). What I need, but Linux still lacks, is a good house floor plan drawing program. Qcad can be used for that purpose, but that's just a general cad program. A quick Google search turns up such programs for Windows, like these:

http://architecture.about.com/cs/cadprograms/tp/designsoftware.htm

I really wish one of these would be ported to Linux. Then I wouldn't ever need to boot Windows.

amarok, konsole & firefox

Huh ? What do you mean by "It doesn't qualify as a *single* app." ?

Or: What should not be missing in a OS since OS/2 Warp 4, and the nearly only thing missing in the OSS/FOSS world these days.

Probably vim for me. I still get heebies when I have to use notepad or something on a Windows box.

Beyond that it'd probably be LaTeX.

Opera.

Sorry, I can't pick just the one so here are my top 5 in no particular order:

* Apache
* VLC
* K3b
* Samba
* X.org

Edited 2007-11-23 17:22

rm is the true killer.
try "rm -rf /" under root

I can't live without this browser. Best browser out there.

Ribbon FTW

ssh+screen+mc

In my opinion, mc is the greatest, most flexible and most underrated program out there. Thankfully, I have managed to get it running in OSX, Linux, Windows and even my Nokia N800 (Just Linux again, I know.)

I don't specify any specific app by name, I just say I need access to ANY web browser everyday

I cant live without kill and xkill. I love the little skull ;D

There's no way i could possibly choose between Kate and LyX.

Really good reading PDF files.

All my critical details like passwords and bank account numbers are safely kept in a highly-encrypted database, that I can access on Linux and Windows.

With all its flaws, it is still the best IDE for my purposes. I regularly work with java IDEs such as eclipse and netbeans, and none of them even comes close.

Bratz, the video game.

LOL.. No, seriously, I'd have to say PuTTY.

TextMate. My developer needs are totally dependent on it, exception made for Java where I'd elect Eclipse. As for Firefox, I love it but I don't depend on it as much as on TextMate (I can use Safari or Opera, although without the nice Firefox extensions like WebDeveloper).

"Often Imitated, Never Duplicated"

http://www.winamp.com

Firefox

In work you may need very specialized apps but mentioning them might not be too interesting here, so I list only what I use most at home with Linux.

Communication and Internet are, of course, quite important - if not necessary - on these days of networks and messaging. There are many good alternative apps for those tasks but what I tend to prefer at home for those kind of tasks are these: Firefox, Evolution, Pidgin & Skype. I've not been a KDE fan lately, but KDE alternatives like Kopete might be worth trying too.

I couldn't do without a good enough office suite either, and that's OpenOffice for me. A good image editing app, GIMP or Krita, is important too, like having a few good media players are too.

For my currently small personal web editing tasks I often need only Bluefish and Kompozer, but I've got heavier alternatives like Eclipse with many plugins installed too should I need or want to play with them too.

The very first program that I tend to install after having got Ubuntu installed is, however, Shorewall firewall usually.

As to occasional gaming...: I've never quite understood what many people find so fascinating in big heavy time-consuming 3D simulation games? (Or maybe I've just grown too old...?) To me they seem a bit too much "Hollywood": lots of commercial hype & expensive special effects, but often rather empty and unintelligent story. Sure I may occasionally like to play something like Planet Penguin Racer a couple of times for a change, but that has usually been all I need from 3D gaming. However, I still prefer classic intellectual games like playing chess against the computer, or PokerTH for poker simulation, or GnomeGo or Panda glGo for playing Go. By the way, it's a pity that there seems to be no native open-source contract Bridge game for Linux where you could also play against the computer (so not needing 3 other online players)?

Whatever compiler I need to use: gcc for C; fasm for assembly.

I was going to say emacs (which is the only editor I use for C), but I can easily use nano to code if need be.

I'm having trouble deciding between vim, screen and ssh.
so firefox it is

my "killer app" is '/sbin/init'. It starts so many useful applications after starting itself ...

The most obvious one: Synaptic

ViM, which I use in all source code editing. It beats Eclipse for certain. (Believe me, I've used both.)

The Perl interpreter is a close second.

Mozilla Firefox.
Used it everyday in my life for the past five years.

It helps me pay my bills.

I can use a different web browser, or mail client to get mail, most any will get the basic job done. iFolder solves so many file sync problems, I don't think I could live without it.

-Cross platform support, Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
-Web interface to get a files when I'm not on one of my computers, https
-Keeps my files in sync to server for backup
-Lets me work on the same set of files on my desktop computer and my laptops
-Syncs over the internet, so I don't have to worry about forgetting to sync at the office before I hit the road with encryption
-All totally in the background, very rarely has a conflict and syncs often enough to not miss anything before shutting down

Not sure when the open source builds have last been updated but the 3.6 version is part of Open Enterprise Server 2 http://www.novell.com/products/openenterpriseserver/ . The open source site is http://www.ifolder.com .

Happy long weekend...

-m

Edited 2007-11-23 18:07

For something original I'll choose: transmissioncli

Very lightweight, easy to use BT client. It's available as cli (as named above) or as gui using gtk2.

G++, Qt4, QDevelop, and The Gimp.

Apt-get is the source of all other applications and upgrades and the no-hassle F/OSS licenses of apt-get repositories is the one reason why non-F/OSS platforms will never have anything equivalently good (shareware and adware maybe, but there's always a catch -- usually privacy or money or lock-in).

putty ssh client.

http://www.uku.fi/~thassine/projects/ghemical/

Another vote for Opera.

Congrats to the Infiniscale guys who simplify you the non trivial task of deploying a diskless cluster.

One morning 10 diskless computers arrived, the afternoon they were running their first simulation.

I can not say enough "thanks" to those guys.

Well, what keeps me on Windows on my primary PC is foobar2000 and Exact Audio Copy. Apart from that, there's no real killer app for me... for instance, I can use Eclipse, Firefox, Thunderbird or OO.org on all "mayor" OSes.

For Linux, I do really love apt-get... that's why Debian based distributions stay my choice

Edited 2007-11-23 18:25

Disc burning for OS X. Simple and beautiful. I had bought Toast online (u get a serial). After I lost the serial they wouldn't give it to me again (I'm not kidding). I'm so glad I switched.

...found 2,030,000 useless webpages...

If I have to chose only one app, it's Firefox.

the one I'm being paid to write at any given time... I may never end up using most the stuff I write, but it puts bread on the table

vim.

Great keyboard shortcuts for Forward and Backward in three differently sized steps.

And usually plays even corrupted or incomplete files.

just because someone else posted vim.

or the console.

Mozilla Seamonkey browser. I use it for both browsing and email.

screen is the most useful app, i can't live without it.

I'm going to have to say telnet. I can reach my cube, talk to cisco routers, and debug some TCP applicaitons.. it's quite handy to have around.

Also: ffdshow, media player classic, vitrualdub, irfanview, trillian and visual studio and Windows XP too btw, it has to be said.

On the gaming front, Live-For-Speed is the game I've played most hours ever.

All those apps are the ones occupying more than 95% of the time I spend with a computer...

Outstanding program , a godsend !
Why?
1. Its FREE
2. Laughably easy to use
2. Converts DivX,Xvid,and others to a new video_ts
folder ready to be burned to a dvd.

There are a lot more xvid and divx movie torrents available
on the internet than dvd ones and they download in
1/7 the time.

Edited 2007-11-23 19:02

Blacktree's Quicksilver. I cannot use a Mac without it, and I don't even use it's full potential.

On alternative platforms, Windows Key + R is my other save, but it's not as robust.

Edited 2007-11-23 19:00

eM Client ... not only I use it for e-mail and to keep my school schedule, but it also makes me earn some little cash

* Firefox
* Netbeans (5.5 was sweet, 6RC2 rocks)

I rather like this quote from the theoretical physicist Jim Hartle, in a talk he gave on quantum cosmology:

Cosmology is the Killer App for Everett Quantum Mechanics

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~everett/slides/hartle.pdf

http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/misc/everett/Hartle%20-%20Co...

May be not the sort of kind of "Killer App" you were thinking of, but interesting eh?

Edited 2007-11-23 19:01

I'd have to say rTorrent, with the amount I download a day I couldn't do without it.

Edited 2007-11-23 19:02

Quicksilver (www.blacktree.com)

install opensuse 10.2 and try to install some software and ZMD awakes...
it'll murder your machine's performance so that's a real killerapp.

no seriously, my vote goes to amarok, the best music experience around.

Oh, yum all that info:-)

* Opera on Windows - It's text-to-speech capabilities are the best I've heard. It's not uncommon for me to copy/paste a bunch of articles into a text file, a perl script converts that to HTML, then have Opera voice 'read' it at night while I sleep and convert that to an mp3 file for listening at work the next day. I don't read very much stuff at my computer anymore

* Directory Opus - Best file manager I've seen.

* Adobe Audition

* Winorganizer - 'Outliner' app + PIM all rolled into one.

* 1by1 - Small media player that specializes in audiobooks.

* PowerDVD - I'd be interested to know if there's another video player out there than lets you fast forward/rewind a video at 2x without changing the pitch of the audio. That's pretty cool

* Maxthon - Use it at work where IE is required. Some features are better implemented than Firefox or Opera.

* And about a half dozen little utils I have written for myself.

VMware Server. Good enough and free.

Most of my friends us IM, it is IM that keep us in touch everyday.

Amarok!

There's only two apps I use every day; Firefox and xterm.

You really, really can't ask me to choose between them. On one hand I couldn't live without my daily dose of the interwebs. On the other hand the terminal is where most of the action is; screen, vim, ssh, irssi, ncmpc, rtorrent, rsync, find, grep, sed, svn, gcc, diff, patch, etc, etc.

gcc

It replaces telnet, ftp and does encrypted tunneling for any application that doesn't have it's own encrypted protocol.

The real thing that seals it for me is remote forwarding. Remotely Possible, PCAnywhere, Windows Remote Desktop, VNC; none of them compare to simply opening an ssh and forwarding the X display to my local machine.

With a liveCD, it's even turned a work issued notebook into a thin-client for use around my house when not working.

OperaMini - this app even can change your lifestyle.

Amarok for sure!

opera mini 4

CLI, but since standard with *nix... then, BASH.

My must have app depends on platform so...

On OS X Quicksilver is an absolute must for me. Always the very first app I install.

On Linux the choice is a little more difficult but i will have to go with OpenSSH.

Doom

95% of the time I'm using a computer, Opera is the only app running. Yes, I know this is cheating, because Opera is everything: browser, email program, RSS reader, IRC client, download manager with BitTorrent, and more. All this with a ~4mb download, and fast to use thanks to mouse gestures. It follows me to every operating system, and I use every feature.

I just can't live without that two programs :S

The sound recording program.

XeTeX (and LuaTeX sometimes in the future) is my killer app...

TeXShell is my second killer app
(who needs LYX or complicated TeX editors when all you really need is TeX skillss....and...customizable buttons and colors, query and replace and syntax highlighting)

my killer app is firefox..
my os is linux ubuntu 7.10
i build ehcp, www.ehcp.net, a hosting control panel
see you

Here I go naming a small telnet client, when I skip over something really obvious.

If an operating system can count as a single 'app,' computing wouldn't have gone much farther than it was in the 80s without Windows. Without it, we'd still have 20 or so different vendors holding monopolies over diverse, non-interoperable platforms, and Moore's law would have become irrelevant with hardware manufacturers trying simply to create a console that could sell, rather than creating better and better hardware for a standardized platform that they could be sure would have customers. So I guess that's still my 'killer app.'

I'd have to say Evolution, as it is the only client that I can use at the office to connect to exchange.

2.firefox
3.gnome-term+ssh

Too many, really good opensource apps.

But K3B is my most used and treasured resource when it comes to apps.

goaltrak.com

no shit ! Can't live with it, can't live without it..

Other than that: WinRAR - not so much that I use it every-every-every day, but it is just really good and it is worth the money since you get a lifetime upgrade right, which I am exercising for ~10 years now... so much on commercial soft.

Freeware:
In a better world, Proxomitron would get more exposure, because I never access a web-page without it. It always works on Linux through wine, too. Forget your FF-extensions that never work for half a year after an FF upgrade, this works better for all browsers simutaneously - always.

God bless Linux, Firefox and vim.

Edited 2007-11-23 20:20

Choosing a browser is a bit dull - we all have one. My must-have app is KDE's Kontact. I get mail, news, both basic notes and basket notes, journal, contacts, calendar and rss feeds all in one place. Since Kontact has a plug-in architecture, I could probably get even more if I tried.

Kontact seems very stable and for me it's a darn site easier to use than Evolution, as well as nicer to look at. To me, this is desktop computing at its best and certainly beats anything I've so far tried on 'doze. Kontact, Amarok, Kate and Digikam are the primary reason I use KDE over Gnome.

My second choice would be KDE's Digikam, an excellent program that keeps things simple for its target audience, executes them very well and does exactly what it says on the tin.

In a year's time, if progress is good, I'm hoping I'll be able to say that KOffice 2 is my top app.

Redundancy is important. You could break *all* of the applications I use regularly and I could switch in alternatives and carry on working. Worst case, I could do almost all my necessary work from a small set of very basic console apps.

I don't think it's necessarily a very good idea to have your work structured so you have a single killer app. What do you do if it breaks?

A Desktop is my primary "Tool"... and so for _me_ GNOME is my Killer App i miss under all the other systems.

Firefox

StrokeIt, excellent lightweight implementation of mouse gestures functionality system-wide. For me it is THE way to interact with Windows (not the only way, of course, but the smartest one for many simple tasks).

Didn't see anything as smart as that one since Mentor Graphics on Sparc Classic.

Unfortunately the project is abandoned and it won't work on Windows Vista.

GNU Screen + ZSH. a killer setup for me.

Vim.

Photoshop.

My beloved browser and irc/mail client is what makes my heart go boom!

No particular order: k3b, amarok, konversation, kstars, kopete, digikam, kooka, krita, koffice, kaffeine

PuTTY (for Windows).

emerge

One app...

Amarok.

Best music player evar! The type of app where people see it, press the buttons for 5 min, and go 'I want it'. Then I say, 'you need linux.' (Until some time in the 2.0 era anyway...)

anywhere, anytime...

Firefox WITH Web Developer Extension

VLC

ffmpeg

I can't live without iqnotes on my Zaurus, but on my Desktops and laptops, I have to say Opera...been using it since version 2.0.

ezQuake!
http://ezquake.sourceforge.net/

Modern client for the best game ever

HyperCard: it got me interested in programming when I was ten. Too bad there aren't any widespread languages like HyperTalk that are so easy a ten year-old, without any knowledge of mathematics besides arithmetic, could program without much difficulty.

Comes with Indiana by default and I can't live without it.

SSH in general, but the extra goodies in OpenSSH makes life behind a single keyboard and hundreds of computers tolerable.

'sudo' + 'kill'

There are a lot of programs I can't live without, but they're more or less replaceable. The only one for which I couldn't find a suitable replacement is Microsoft Excel for Windows (even if I use it for 10% of its features).
I'm glad I can use the Windows version on the MacBook with vmware :-)

Emacs

vim.

though I use it on my Fedora and PCBSD boxes mostly... is NetBeans. Amazing piece of software.

I would have to say Opera, for I use it on all my machines and it's great cross platform using it currently on a win xp box, Vector Linux, Debian etch and Debian Lenny boxes. So that would be my app of joyce use it every day.

I use LaTeX to typeset my math papers (and EMACS/AucTeX as a front end). Seems like nothing beats LaTeX in this respect.

Puri has at the moment not so much functionalitty, but already now I like it more than XBoard or EBord.
So, "Puri, Master of Chess" on Syllable is my choose.

Helpless without BASH and vim.
Love and use them everyday.

Google tracks all your searches in order to create a profile of you. If you use Firefox, use also TrackMeNot.
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/trackmenot/

Better yet, make Tor and Privoxy your "killer apps".

I use most of what's already been mentioned - firefox, bash, vim.... under linux all day every day.

However, the one app that my life literally depends upon is MS Money. Say what you like about MS - I don't care, this is a brilliant product for hardly any amount of money really. Its the one thing that will keep a windows partition on my hard drive, probably forever!

When used correctly, MS Money has crack like addiction, it is just unbelievably useful to keep track of finances, shares, bills and household expenditure. Nothing comes close. Use it every day without fail. Oh the weirdly very satisfying sensation of reconciling your current account.

It even passes the "wife" test with flying colors - she gets traumatised if she hasn't kept her receipts and accounts up to date. Praise indeed.

Long may it be upgraded.

Edited 2007-11-23 23:19

Emacs, Emacs, Emacs!

If I can only choose one I'd say gedit. I use it for writing code and editing config files. With the right set of plugins it's better than most IDEs since you get syntax highlighting, autocomplete, a class browser, and a python shell.

Always the first thing I install on any computer I'm using.

I do so many things in so many DEs/Operating Systems that I simply can't pick just one.

In Windows I must have:

iTunes/Utorrent/VLC/Firefox/Pidgin. I always install Warpath as well (older space based strategy game - not overly complex, but fun. If I could have all those hours back...Runs perfectly in Wine as well)

KDE
Amarok/Ktorrent/VLC/Firefox/Kopete/Yakuake (pretty terminal that pops down whenever you hit F12). I really cannot live without APT, and I've tried...

Especially version of it called: "Rational Application Developer".

Very powerfull.

And very expensive.

foobar2000

And by a browser, I mean a non-IE one. Safari, Opera or FF, doesn't matter to me.

I have two work-related software titles that I absolutely must have access to. Without these, the computer can't pay for itself:

M-Control, the program that communicates with the data collection box.

Mudlog.exe, the program that creates and prints our drilling reports.

Servant Salamander (now Altap Salamander) - while I like Vista's Explorer, I cannot live without two-panel file manager. I don't like Total Commander, it's too oldschool. AS is THE file manager.

MPD or EAC

But EAC can run easily in emulation, so MPD.

I can't live without my Microsoft Outlook and Exchange.

Because that's the one thing I'd want if I was on a virtual island, all alone.

A close second: VLC/Firefox/uTorrent

foobar2000.
main reason I can't move anywhere other than windows.

Amarok FTW!

goaltrak.com

Because without it, I'm all alone...

really nice web broweer

VLC can paly just about any media format ever invented and is multiplatform.

Gmail.

Seriously.

It's what I've always wanted:

A great, easy to use, almost the exact features I need, available anytime, anywhere I have an internet connection mail client.

don't leave home without it

I absolutely can't live without Adobe Illustrator!

My life (both business and personal) would cease to exist without Outlook + Exchange. IMO Exchange is *the* killer app for Windows Server.

Aside from that, Visual Studio on Windows is the other app that allows me to feed my family.

the best ide in the universe.

it isn't something I use all the time, but is certainly something I couldn't live without. Whenever I need to contact a friend on the fly and one of us doesn't have a phone, we get on meebo for a quick and easy IM session. it's so nice since people don't have to download anything for those that aren't computer savvy.

Emacs, of course...
I have earned all my living since I graduated from school by developing programs on Emacs. With its multiple program modes and customizability with e-lisp, I cannot survive a (working) day without emacs.

Geeky of course, but so is Vim and gcc ...

Python comes a close second. I will be nowhere without this excellent, free, X-platform, open source language and interpreter.

Thank God for Linux, Emacs, Python and gcc.

I had my first encounter with VMware in 2001.
The product has evolved tremendously.

For me as an OS enthusiast both private and professional VMware can't be substituted.

You can make single vm's, clone existing ones and asign them to a team. In addition you can make snapshots,screenshots and even record live usage.

If i have visited distrowatch and are interested in a particular distro, the only thing I have to so is download an iso and let it boot in a VMware vm. More often i make a snapshot of the particular OS so i can revert from snapshot at any given moment in time and have an updated system.

Simply amazing.

Oh btw i personally have the insight Google is irreplaceble too.

I rest my case.

Edited 2007-11-24 08:43

For me it's definitely Pixel image editor - http://www.kanzelsberger.com

Firefox. I also like textmate but I can live without it.

Definitly illustrator - no better app for making vector graphics, making design sooo easy!

I do a lot of graphics and photography, so it's my killer app!

I first thought I'd choose Opera browser but no; there are some almost good alternatives.

I have to go with Total Commander.

OpenSSH+screen+vim for my work, and Firefox+(put here any good video player like totem, vlc, mplayer, etc)+bzflag for my desktop. All under the FreeBSD hood, of course ;-)

GET THAT FRIGGIN FACE OUT THE FRONT PAGE! It's horrible!

hmm... probably Miranda IM.

I've been using Opera since version 6.0 and I can't live without it. There are some great browsers out there(Firefox for instance), but I feel discomfort when using them and just miss all the neat stuff I have in my Opera. Also it's the only browser I know of that don't crash(or seriously slow down the system) with 30-50 tabs open(I like to browse MANY sites at once. )

It's also very comforting to know that when I leave the windows plattform I can still use it. (I plan on using XP for as long as I can, but I'll prob. never use Vista. It's horrible)

---------------------------

On a side note I'm getting more and more dependent on my own program that I call x|notes. It's basicly a notepad clone but it's optimized to be used for noting down stuff so(just like Opera) it remembers what files that was open so when I open it after comming back to my computer I can continue where I left off. Nothing impressive about the app but it works really well for me.

Definitely Gnucash.....I wouldn't be able to observe my spending habits.

Total Commander. Screw all other imitators.

ReiserFS

I literally couldn't compute without it.

Opera on windows, on linux, on FreeBSD and on my mobile phone. Definetely.

it`s "REAPER".
http://reaper.fm
but i`m using version 0.999, that is the last freeware version, on win xp, and on pclinuxos with wine and wine-asio.

Is Gedit; front end editor for both LaTeX and WordPress ...

Konqueror does everything and nothing.It could do nothing itself, but it could do everything using another KStuff, so yeah, Whole KDE For Me.
I Use konqueror for
Web browsing: KHTML
FileManagement: Konqueror itself
Advanced Image Viwewing: Gwenview
Watching Small Multimedia files: KMPlayer
SVN Client: kdesvn
...

Not my killer app, but definitely my girlfriend's. I have fun with it also.

Firefox

There are a load of applications that I have to use due to work requirements. I can't really do without applications like Microsoft Office, simply because I need the compatibility they offer, not necessarily because I prefer them to the alternatives.

There are quite a few apps that I really enjoy using and really miss then they aren't available, often because I have them configured to meet my needs. EAC and Fubar2000 are two examples.

EAC is by far the best audio CD ripper I've used, essential when trying to archive a large collection to lossless files. It's supported with various 3rd party plugins and utilities to make that process quick and painless.

Foobar2000 doesn't look too impressive at first glance, but is a truly brilliant media player. There are none of the annoyances in other players (ridiculous eye-candy skins for example) and loads of useful features. For example the file tagging and conversion tools work great, making it easy to manage your collection with that one tool. The whole thing can be tweaked and expanded in countless ways, making it one of the most flexible apps I've ever used.

If I had to choose just one application I wouldn't want to live without it'd definitely be Opera. Like quite a few other people here I do a lot of web browsing, both for entertainment and research purposes. Opera is in a totally different league to any other browser I've used.

It's amazingly fast and stable even when a large number of pages are open, best of all the user interface allows that number of pages to be managed effectively. There are just so many great little touches and useful features in Opera that it's like going into the past when using an alternative. Using any other browser feels like working with one hand tied behind my back, so limited, slow and frustrating.

...my killer app is any terminal available. Can't live without a text console.

Who can live without cat ?

Far and away my most important app. I can't even begin to imagine the KVM I'd need without it!

(A *very* close second is scp)

Edited 2007-11-24 23:16

On my mac my Killer apps are Logic with Komplete 5. On Linux its tvtime, because right now it doubles as my television. Firefox for both platforms and on Windows its the shutdown button.

I didn't read all the pages, but of the few I did, I couldn't help but think "Emacs can do that."

I use Firefox on my MacBook, the PCs at work, and whatever Linux machines I encounter.

I use the Adblock Plus, Flashblock, and del.icio.us extensions, and spend a majority of my computing time in FF.

it can do everything that commercial image editors can do and more,its free, and it works on every version of windows.

SSH
Subversion
TextEdit

Firefox

Counted 16 time Opera and 15 times Firefox.
I had to ignore those that failed to mention only one app, since these were the rules.

Emacs seems to be up there too...

Funny thing, who would have thought Opera stands a chance against this not-so-perfect Opera copy that firefox tuirns out to be.

For all you firefox fans, aren't you a bit annoyed that your favourite browser is struggling to copy Opera all the time while Opera still manages to invent newer and better features all the time?

Tough one, this.

I guess though, Firefox... how to live without it?

Next, for Linux, Amarok, Digikam, K3B
For Windows, uTorrent, iTunes, WindowBlinds

Edited 2007-11-25 10:17

The linux kernel is a very useful application. It automatically manages all my free memory, and is capable of running lots of plugins to take advantage of my hardware

Former Windows Commander, a much better replacement for Norton Commander

best 3d modeller

...this is really hard! It's impossible for me to choose only one killer app, so my "can't-live-without" apps are as follows:

Firefox, with the AdBlock Plus extension is priceless;
https://www.mozilla.com/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865

Notepad 2 , the best damn text editor out there;
http://www.flos-freeware.ch/

µTorrent, nothing comes close to this wonderful program;
http://www.utorrent.com/

BOINC, for helping Humanity achieve victory against diseases, contributing to important research etc. with their PC's;
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/

Midnight Commander by Icazca (sp?) is my kill ap; if I can efficiently manage my gigabytes, then i'll not have joy.

thanks for asking.

digiKam makes my life as an avid photographer a lot easier.

It has great photo management features and allowes me to do some corrections and enhancements.

SSH, mplayer.

And vim since recently.

Edited 2007-11-25 21:22

I gotta go with gcc.

google calendar
we organize everything with the sms feature

Love this app, it's been part of my everyday life for a couple of years. Just got a Nokia E61, but still prefer Opera Mini over Opera Mobile, it's the best way to browse the web when on the run.

If I had to say ONE, then it would be...

-Blackbox for Windows (bblean)
http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/

But my all-time-favorites are... (ALL FREE!!!)

-Winamp
http://www.winamp.com

-Handbrake
http://handbrake.m0k.org

-OpenOffice
http://www.openoffice.org

-SequoiaView
http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

-DVD Flick
http://www.dvdflick.net

Edited 2007-11-26 05:44

+1 for eclipse!

I'd say ssh and screen, but since it has already been mentioned repeatedly, some that haven't:

weechat - best console-based IRC client I've seen so far. Split vertically so nicklist is always displayed, among other virtues. Really dig it.

qemu/kvm - I've got 8 OSes running here without a problem. So far it runs everything I've needed/wanted except Solaris. Then again, vmware locks my system up when I try to run Solaris as well.

portage - I still have few issues with portage. It still makes upgrading and installing pretty straight forward.

xmess - For running old Commodore, Apple, and Atari software. This thing emulates just about any old 8 bit computer.

bzflag - Still the only game I ever play, since I don't have a video game attention span that goes beyond 15 minutes most of the time. Fantastic game play, if not much bling.

klibido - Once I got used to the cluttered interface, I determined this was the best binary newsgroup handler/downloader I'd ever used.

Google Earth - can't get enough of this and it runs great in Linux

I like http://qalculate.sourceforge.net/ . Unfortunately, no one ports/compiles it for Windows.

I just love this little guy.

If it only could receive better flash and java support

Best browser ever.

_

It's not the first app I reach for, but it -is- the one I can't live without.

I love the convenience of checking my mail from my desktop. I love the GUI and it's got builtin Newsreaders.

Nothing on Linux remotely like it, unfortunately. Come on Mackie, port it!!!

Makes the calendar on my Windows Mobile phone truly usable.

My favorite and most useful one is for sure AGENDUS windows version and palm. An absolute wonder

MythTV

Visual Studio 2005

Firefox. Without it world has no meaning.

I got two, but they are on different platforms.
On the pc its definitely Firfox. But on my mobile phone i can't live without Opera Mini.

Opera...hands down!

My other faves were already mentioned many times over.

Rhythmbox

My killer app is Painter. I can use Photoshop for rendering, but Painter is so much better. I always hear people complaining about GIMP, but if there were an open source replacement for Painter that's as good as GIMP, I'd switch.

I know, there are lots of chat programs compatible with gtalk. But i use google talk for both chat and voice chat. It sounds better than skype, and my mom set it up all by herself. I live over seas and its the main way i communicate with my relatives back in the states. So, google talk is my killer app.

Not that I need it, but living without ah well I can adjust....

Photoshop is one app I cannot part with, nothing else compares and I've been using it since the beginning.

The Most avanced OS in the Earth