I use AppFresh in conjunction with www.iusethis.com to manage my software and it’s really quite a treat. iusethis.com let’s you note the software that you use (not neccessarily the software you have installed - OSX comes with a lot of things I don’t really use) with a Digg-like interface. You just find the software you use and click “iusethis” and now it’s in your profile and the number of people using that software goes up by one.

This allows you to see the software that others are using, both the most popular and the “upcoming” stuff. It’s a great way to spend a few minutes looking for a new download to make your day easier.

Where things really shine though are with AppFresh. This desktop app scans your system for all your installed software and shows you a list of everything. It then checks to see which ones are out of date and can update them to the latest version for you. With a click of a button, all your installed software gets updated. But in addition to this great functionality, AppFresh integrates with iusethis, so that after it scans your system for apps you have installed, you can then quickly go down the list and mark the ones you actually use and it will update your profile on iusethis.com.

The two big benefits you get are the ability to see what software your friends are using and, this is key, when you move to another computer (say, a new laptop or something) you can install AppFresh and connect it with your iusethis account. AppFresh will then tell you all the software that you use that isn’t installed yet and then install it for you (assuming it’s free or shareware).

How cool is that?

Here’s my list of software I use.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 12:01 am and is filed under Awesome Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.