Top 10 Cross-Platform Applications

As we slowly inch towards the new year, I can’t help but think about the sheer number of “Top xx” lists I’ve looked at throughout 2009. There were many this year, some good and some “meh”, and when I think of the good ones, I tend to think of Lifehacker, since most often, I always learn of something new when looking at a top list of something I thought I was a master of.

So, the title “Top 10 Cross-Platform Apps” caught my attention, and though I expected to see 10 programs I use on a regular basis, I was surprised to see a couple listed that I’ve never heard of, and some that I forgot about, but would like to revisit again. The reason this top-list is worthwhile though, is that it doesn’t matter what OS you’re running… these apps work in Windows, Mac OS X and Linux just fine.

As the screenshot below suggests, one item on their list is Thunderbird, and that’s one I can personally vouch for as well, as I’ve been using it myself for just over five years. It has its downsides, but the upsides make up for those, and more. I don’t just use Thunderbird because the choices are limited in Linux, it’s because it’s reliable, isn’t bloated, and works well. The same can mostly be said about another entry on the site’s list, for the popular IM client Pidgin.

Other entries on the list of course include Firefox, with other familiar faces (for me) being 7-zip and VLC Media Player. Select applications I haven’t heard of include KeePass, an interesting method of having all your passwords handy no matter where you are, Miro, a cool video player that handles RSS and various popular services, Dropbox, an app that allows you to access the same folder anywhere, and Buddi, a personal finance organizer.

TrueCrypt is a multi-platform security tool for encrypting and protecting files, folders, or entire drives. The software behind it is open source, and so likely to be supported and developed beyond its current version and platforms. It’s only on Windows, Mac, and Linux at the moment (though that’s no small feat), but it can be made to run as a portable app, and its encryption standards—AES, Serpent, and Twofish—are supported by many other encryption apps that can work with it.