Many people who have installed the Mac OS X Public Beta have felt tied down to Classic and unable to escape the clutches of Mac OS 9. Finding Carbon or Cocoa versions of software you use or applications with equivalent functionality can be difficult. Those developers who have released Carbon versions of their applications seem to still have quite a bit of debugging to do. In this article I hope to offer you some pointers to applications that are easily accessible to OS X users that will let you cut the ol' ball and chain of Mac OS 9.

On a daily basis I use several applications. Among them are word processors, IRC clients, web browsers, email applications, instant messaging software, FTP clients, HTML editors, and more. None of these applications are uncommon and are used by many internet users, students, and home computer users. I've successfully migrated from using Mac OS 9 to almost strictly Mac OS X without Classic.

IRC Clients

I consider this one of the harder areas to migrate from Classic. The most popular Mac OS IRC client is Ircle. The website says to email the author to get a Carbon version, but no one I have spoken with has received that Carbon version. Due to this I can't offer any idea of how stable it is or how well it behaves under OS X.

Snak is the second most popular IRC client for the Mac OS. There was a Carbon version posted briefly but was pulled without any reason listed by the author. It was rather fragile and unstable under Mac OS X.

Your other options are JediKnight and BitchX. I thought the story on JediKnight was that development had ceased, but a version was posted on VersionTracker recently, so maybe someone else has taken over. User reports seem to paint it as unstable and hard to install. Not many people have reported using BitchX under OS X, but the few who have didn't have any complaints, except that it is BitchX ;-)

I personally am a fan of Snak. I've used it for quite a while now and was very happy to see a Carbon version. Unfortunately I found the instability quite annoying, so I simply ran it in Classic. If you have enough RAM to spare, this is one area where Classic is a good idea. Hopefully a solid version of both Ircle and Snak will be posted in the next few weeks.

Web Browsers

This is another tough area. You essentially have two solid browsers, both with similar stability and speed, but both missing some features.

As I've stated before, under OS 9 I was a hold-out Netscape user, so I can't really compare IE for OS9 and OS X. I will say that it seemed to work alright under OS X, with good speed and accurate rendering. It did have some problems accessing sites that OmniWeb handled just fine. I think this might be due to incomplete JavaScript support.

OmniWeb is a solid browser. It seems to have good speed and accurate layout. It has limited Flash and JavaScript support, but does support SSL. Both browsers have no Java support. OmniWeb crashes a few times a day while I'm using it, one nice thing is that when it crashes an application called CrashCatcher comes up and takes some data relevant to the crash and asks if you'd like to send it to the developers. This makes me feel better about the crashes, knowing that at least the developer will know I'm having problems and can take a look and hopefully squash a bug. I've found this a solid replacement for Netscape, my only complaint being the unique bookmarks implementation. I know some of you think this is where OmniWeb really shines, but I can't see any advantage of it over the normal menu.

Both browsers can handle the average daily surfing, I simply found OmniWeb able to view some sites that IE couldn't. Both browsers could stand to have improved JavaScript support, and plain ol' Java support would be nice. To conclude, both browsers are supposed to be getting updates soon, IE's might even come over the Software Update mechanism.

Email Applications

As far as I know your only option is Mail, unless you wish to compile one of the Unix mail applications. Mail has a nice interface, is easy to setup, and has a fair amount of power in the preferences. Unfortunately, it lacks versatility when it comes to using multiple accounts. I've been able to tolerate using it, but having to go into the prefs to change what account you are sending from is annoying. The fact that it is tied into the Address Book application is handy. Coming from such a brilliant application as Claris Emailer, I am a bit disappointed at the lack of functionality, but it should be a great application for most users with simpler needs. There has been little word of a Carbon version of OE or Eudora so far, but I would be surprised not to see them them on the scene within the next few months.

Instant Messaging

This is a relatively easy area. You won't find versions of ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, or any other system for OS X currently, but you will find one third party application that can handle multiple systems. Fire is a instant messaging application designed to support ICQ, AIM, and Yahoo (MSN support is currently being worked on). It most closely resembles the interface of AIM, but the preferences offer a lot of customization. It has proved itself a worthy successor to AIM on OS9 for me, and even has one major advantage: no ads! While it may not be as good as native ports of the applications, Fire should be adequate for most users.

FTP Clients

This was another easy area to migrate out of Classic. Panic Software released a version of their FTP client, Transmit, for the Public Beta shortly after its release. While it isn't the most stable Carbon application in the world, it is great to see Panic's early support for OS X and it has proved itself a satisfactory performer for updating X Appeal. Hopefully a Carbon version of Anarchie/Interarchy will be released soon.

HTML Editors

This is another easy area. Mac OS X comes with an application called HTMLEdit. It is a WYSIWYG editor, but I prefer using it in the text mode. It seems to make many common tasks easier, though the WYSIWYG mode generates pretty messy code. A couple annoying habits it has are to quit randomly and complaining about the code not being perfect, preventing it from previewing in a browser. For a free application it is rather nice and is a fine replacement until Macromedia, Adobe, and Bare Bones get their Carbon applications out.

Summary

As you can see, there aren't several options in any of the categories. Luckily, every category has a solid option. Hopefully the dream of shedding Classic no longer seems as unreasonable and you can move into the future with Mac OS X.