This day-after-Thanksgiving, when many Americans are enjoying a day off and several others are at work goofing around on OSNews, we decided to ask you: what’s your “killer app?” What’s the one app you can’t live without? Sound off in the comments – one app only!
What’s Your “Killer App?”
About The Author
Adam Scheinberg
Technology Executive • Web Developer • Father • Foodie • Music Snob • OS enthusiast
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Safari. I love this browser.
Edited 2007-11-23 16:20 UTC
Well, not a bad choice. Definitely not. +1
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??
What’s Your “Killer App?”
Epiphany: The web browser for the GNOME desktop.
Indeed.
I can’t mode you up, but Paint.net is a neat little program for quickly editing photos.
Firefox
Definately firefox.
The type to find feature is incredibly useful, and I miss it when I don’t have it. Extensions are another reason that I use it, especially google sync.
My killer app is xkill, but I would almost never need it if not for Firefox.
For all it’s flaws (and there are many) I agree. I just can’t stay away, and I’ve tried many many browsers.
To be more specific though, I absolutely cannot live without Firefox+ All-In-One Gestures extension. WHY CLICK ON THE BACK BUTTON?
On every computer I use, especially those at work running IE6, I always click the right mouse button and drag left really quickly to go back…And I get a context menu
Sometimes we spoil ourselves…
GRUB or LILO…essential for jumping outta Windows…
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
No kidding. This is one of *the* most versatile apps ever. Once you’ve really used it, you can’t live without it. Computer crack.
Seconded, I was going to suggest PUTTY, but SSH covers it much better.
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.
+1 for you!!
I think the same.
Yes. Konqueror does so much that it’s not even funny. Whenever I have to use Windows or Gnome without Konqueror, I constantly find myself wishing for Konqueror with all of its great features. It’s not perfect – sometimes I have to use firefox because sites are browser compliant instead of standards compliant – but it’s one of the most powerful apps that I know.
Gorillas.bas
L O L
Less than a week ago I mentioned this game to my girlfriend and was appalled to find out that she never heard about it.
Oh Lord, the old days of messing with the source to increase the explosion radius or the speed of the banana
Haha.. you did that too?
… those were the days. They don’t make games like that anymore. First time I played it was in 1991 I believe – on a Compaq L20 laptop (20 MB HDD and one 1.44 MB floppy drive – and ‘widescreen’ CGA – and wonderful 640 KB of RAM.
Those were the days
PS: Forgot to mention the pc-speaker. That one ruled :p
Yea!!!! Me too… I almost rewrote this game at one point.
AMEN Reverend!
Damn, I have to fire up dosbox now
Latex
Man, I recently became proficient in LaTeX. I love it, except for the nuances with floats. I now refuse to touch Word or PowerPoint even for non-mathematical projects like biochemical lab reports. But you really need to know someone proficient in LaTeX for it not to become overwhelmingly frustrating.
When I was at School, I got into trouble for looking up Bondage websites on the School Internet. Turns out that my searching for “LaTeX plugins” tripped the content filter. Can’t think why [/]
I agree. LaTeX has its warts, but there is no serious alternative — unlike most other applications that I use. Yes, I prefer Firefox, but I can live with other browsers. Yes, I prefer Emacs, but I can live with other editors. But I’m pretty much dependent on LaTeX for a lot of my work.
Linux Terminal Server Project because I like my my terminals totally silent and no local maintenance.
figlet sup dudes | cowsay -n
Just installed cowsay pretty cool!
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.
Yeah, Screen is something else I wouldn’t want to live without
Another vote for screen here. Although lately I’ve become quite fond of transmission. I think it’s the perfect bittorent client. I also have to give Vim a lot of praise.
Edited 2007-11-23 22:14
Have you had issues with Adium and certain torrents simply doing nothing – sitting at 0?
Just curious, my roommate seems to have this problem and we can’t seem to find a solution.
vim and zsh
/+1 vim.
I even use to develop Windows software. (Instead of VC-2K3)
– Gilboa
P.S. I’d suggest you try vimperator extension for firefox.
It makes firefox use a vim-like interface.
– Gilboa
amaroK, because no other media player can compare!
+1 for amaroK, even if the newer winamps come close feature-wise, it’s just nowhere near the same.
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
You forgot Far Manager … the best of all.
I can agree more. When I used to run Windows, Total Commander was in my startup sequence.
Now that I run Linux, Midnight Commander is just a ‘mc’ away. 🙂
all same .. just 2 bad mucommander for osX is not in premiere league atm
I just use Midnight Commander … under Linux, OS/2, Solaris, Windows, and on my Nokia 770.
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!
could you pls. elaborate on the idea of 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
Does ktorrent have a built in player for multimedia formats or burner for disc images? presumably you’d want to do something with the data you port around?
Maybe Miro, with its build in bittorrent support and media playing abilities is more of a killer app in the one app you can’t live without sense.
Well I have VLC or Mplayer
to play any format you can thorow at them. K3B
handles burning but I rarely do that.
Also Miro though good is not ported
well to some unix systems like Solaris
so for distro hoppers like me is
not quite there yet.
you must download a LOT of torrents for this to be your one killer app
These days I have 100 upstream and maybe
3 or 4 downstream per week…so yes..
Basically my computer is my TV and media center.
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.
couldn’t agree more
[opera user since 2001]
Me three!
[Opera user since ’00.]
me four! (since 2001: first tried the 3.xx version included in BeOS R5 Personal, stuck with it back in Windows et al.)
GNU BASH. I refuse to use a computer without bash. (at work I have static binaries for AIX, Solaris and HP-Ux hehe)
I agree. I hate working on a computer without GNU BASH.
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
)
Another one for Amarok
Edited 2007-11-23 21:57
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
VLC is so good I forget that it exists, it’s one of the first things I install on freshly installed OS… any OS.
An example of FOSS that does it, does it right, and just gets out of your way.
Powerful, flexible, fast…It does everything.
I’m jealous of my roomie’s osx build – fullscreen controls! Bah…
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.
Have you tried using it under Wine ? or a virtual machine ?
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.
This should solve your problem:
ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/pc/gvim71.exe
– Gilboa
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
Or mv file(s) /dev/null if you’re oldskool 😉
Edited 2007-11-23 17:32
I prefer dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda
Why just delete your files, when you can overwrite your partition table and filesystem headers too?
Hahaha. For any newbs out there I suggest you NOT try this
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
Oh! You got it before me. I must say… no other app is as KILLER as x?kill!!!!
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.
that’s because you have never tried JBuilder.
Could you please elaborate on why Eclipse doesn’t come close? I’ve worked a LOT with Eclipse and my mileage significantly varies from yours. I can actually pinpoint some things where Eclipse is actually way better (starting with the price) but the ball is on your side, so I’ll wait for your points and refute them if possible.
performance and the gui builder are the two things that come to mind. IMHO VS is a really good IDE, but you need additional plugins to make it truly a killer app, like JetBrains ReSharper or DevExpress CodeRush
Bratz, the video game.
LOL.. No, seriously, I’d have to say PuTTY.
PuTTY rocks. But it goes back to an earlier SSH post.
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).
Textmate is the one app I spend most time in front of, just a bit ahead of ITerm…. (sorry for the two apps)
Definitely Textmate too. Best editor ever. Those who doubts about this, give it a try and you will be seduce too.
“Often Imitated, Never Duplicated”
http://www.winamp.com
Winamp is awesome. I love the little client, and am still searching for a replacement on Linux or FreeBSD. Audacious looks like it might be close though.
They really need to allow it to be ported.
How about xmms? its almost identical to winamp 2.95 (the best version) and even uses the same skins.
No, how about Beep Music Player or Audacious instead, XMMS is old and crusty, or you could come somewhat up to date, if you have more thant 20 digital music files to your name, and use a music manager like Listen, Exail or, well, any of these
http://www.gnomefiles.org/subcategory.php?sub_cat_id=2
XMMS is old, is crusty, and depreciated ~ however, it still works well with large file counts, which cannot be said for either Beep or Audacious ~ and it has a massive availability of plugins.
For a combination of lightweight & powerful, I’m not sure one could beat yammi + xmms + a decent collection of plugins (Anyone thinking of saying Amarok, try tossing 15 or 20,000 files into it.)
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
Apt ftw!
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’m sure Ruby on Rails or any other open source framework will help you pay your bills much better.
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…
LOL
http://www.screenpopsoftware.com/
If I have to chose only one app, it’s Firefox.