Developer

12 must-have cross-platform applications

By · July 27, 2010, 12:42 AM PST · ensable

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  • Firefox

    It's no longer unusual for organizations--or even individuals--to use a mix of Windows, Linux, and Mac, so we need applications that work across these different platforms. TechRepublic contributors have discovered their favorites as they work with them day to day, so here is a list to get you started. Feel free to make a case for your own favorites in the comments.

    There is little doubt that one of the most popular cross-platform applications is Firefox. No other browser has come as close to usurping Internet Explorer as the reigning king of the Web. A good cross-platform browser has become essential, since so many applications and services are now handled online. Thankfully, the rise in popularity of cross-platform browsers like Firefox has helped ensure that companies don't lock down their sites and services to a single browser.

  • OpenOffice Suite

    OpenOffice is one of the pillars of the open source community and is one of the most important cross-platform applications available, providing a solid and free alternative to Microsoft Office.

  • TeamViewer

    If you do any support, you know the importance of a good application that allows you to remote into a client's machine. There are plenty of them out there; some of them are cross platform by way of being used within a browser. But few of them are truly cross-platform applications. TeamViewer is one such beast. With a client for Windows, Linux, Mac, and iPhone, there will rarely be a client or situation you can't support.

  • Adobe Acrobat Reader

    There's no shortage of PDF readers out there. And for every platform, there is a unique PDF reader. But none of those unique viewers offers the quality and ease of use that Adobe Reader provides. It is the standard for PDFs, and with clients for just about every platform, it's a clear winner over the competition.

  • Google Chrome

    Google Chrome is fast (the Linux version has been tested as the fastest rendering Web browser on any platform), it is stable, extensible, and as cross platform as any other browser (not called IE).

  • Thunderbird

    If you're looking for a stand-alone email client and you need it to traverse the landscape of all your platforms, look no further than Thunderbird. With its slick, tabbed interface, you will find no email client that looks and performs as well across your operating systems. And like its cousin, Firefox, Thunderbird is theme-able and has a vast repository of plug-ins to make it even more useful.

  • MySQL Workbench

    Although this tool is new to the world, you will not find a better database administration tool anywhere for any platform. With MySQL Workbench, you can work your MySQL magic on all platforms.

  • VLC

    You will be hard pressed to find a more flexible, useful media player than VLC. VLC is available for Linux, Mac, Windows, *BSD, UNIX, Solaris, and more. It can play nearly everything and even do it across a network. It has a tiny footprint, it's open source, and it's free. What more do you want in a media player?

  • VMware

    Although I am a HUGE fan of VirtualBox (which is also cross platform), VMware can be used across platforms for just about any reason. From a single user wanting to experiment with other OSs to massive enterprise roll-outs, VMware can do pretty much anything. It's proprietary, but it's worth every penny.

  • Apache

    Apache is one of the most-used Web servers in the world. When you add to that the fact that you can use Apache on Windows, Linux, and Mac, it's hands down the winner among Web servers. And to top it off, Apache is free. How can the competition win against such a mighty contender?

  • Synergy+ keyboard and mouse sharing

    With Synergy+ your primary computer can be Windows, Linux, or OS X and so can any of the other computers that you want to share the keyboard and mouse with. And there is no need for additional cables or KVM switches--if the computers are networked together, that is all the connection required.

    Synergy+ works on a client-server architecture. So the primary workstation, to which the keyboard and mouse are physically (or wirelessly) attached acts as the Synergy+ server, whereas the other systems will act as the Synergy+ clients.

  • Dropbox

    Dropbox is a synchronization service that works seamlessly between Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X clients. With it, you have a specific directory that is synchronized between various systems linked to your account. By dragging a file into this special Dropbox directory, it will be automatically pushed to every other system's Dropbox; remove a file and it will be removed from every system. This can be used to share documents, configuration files, photos, music, or anything else you want. Beyond synchronizing files between linked systems, you can also access files via the Dropbox Web site.

Firefox

It's no longer unusual for organizations--or even individuals--to use a mix of Windows, Linux, and Mac, so we need applications that work across these different platforms. TechRepublic contributors have discovered their favorites as they work with them day to day, so here is a list to get you started. Feel free to make a case for your own favorites in the comments.

There is little doubt that one of the most popular cross-platform applications is Firefox. No other browser has come as close to usurping Internet Explorer as the reigning king of the Web. A good cross-platform browser has become essential, since so many applications and services are now handled online. Thankfully, the rise in popularity of cross-platform browsers like Firefox has helped ensure that companies don't lock down their sites and services to a single browser.

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By Selena Frye

Selena has been at TechRepublic since 2002. She is currently a Senior Editor with a background in technical writing, editing, and research. She edits Data Center, Linux and Open Source, Apple in the Enterprise, The Enterprise Cloud, Web Designer, and...

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