Review by Frank Petrie

Product: Xslimmer 1.7
Author: LateNiteSoft <www.xslimmer.com>
Requirements: OS X 10.3.9 minimum
Price: $14.95
Test Rig: 13″ MacBook Pro; 5GB RAM; Mac OS X 10.6

Ahh, fall is here and Snow Leopard is in the air. But before you install/upgrade, you should really do a few things first. Naturally, perform a back up – RIGHT!? But then root around your virtual attic. Are there pieces of bric-a-brac just floating around in there? No longer used applications? Stray .plists? Toss ‘em.

Then you’re ready to use Xslimmer to finish up the job and get everything ready for Snowy.

“Xslimmer not only frees space wasted by unused code, it can even increase your Mac’s performance. Some of our users have reported applications loading in almost half the time, because OS X does not need to analyze Xslimmer applications in search for the most suitable version of the code.”

Doesn’t Snowy deserve a nice clean bed?

THE JUICE

Xslimmer is great for separating Intel from PowerPC apps, giving you a heads up as to which applications will work with your new system. Also, it gives you a chance to see if any of your favorite PowerPC apps have been updated to Intel apps. You could do this manually through “About This Mac,” but it would take much longer and besides, isn’t your computer supposed to work for you?

Xslimmer also uses a downloadable blacklist, which tracks apps that do not allow themselves to be modified – to prevent piracy, usually. “Blacklisted apps will be ignored, and the list will be automatically updated as new troublesome apps are discovered.”

And you could use Xslimmer like a stealth version of Time Machine. “Xslimmer saves a copy of your originals for you, and lets it delete old backups periodically so that you don’t have to remember about them. Restore your app quickly if you suspect it does not work correctly after being slimmed down.”

And that’s just a few of the bonus features.

THE PULP

Xslimmer has a very clean GUI. Read the Help file to familiarize yourself with the Toolbar Buttons and you’ll be at it in no time. I cleaned out the flotsam on my machine in about half an hour. And my machine is littered with apps and extra code from the software reviews that I do.

Next step, will be to eventually go through my apps and weed out the 32-bit from the 64-bit. (64-bit FCE? Hint, hint.)

THE RIND

Nada.

SUMMARY

This is an absolute toolbox necessity that should be used once a month if you’re always adding apps. Even using it otherwise,  couldn’t hurt. I know that I’ll run it when I do my monthly run of Disk Warrior. And don’t forget that you can also use it for backing up your files.

For $14.95, you’d have to be one dumb cat to pass this up.

RATING : 10 of 10

©2009 Frank Petrie