Xslimmer: Cut the Fat from Your Mac
01/16/2008 17:57 Filed in: Technology
I found a great little program today called Xslimmer ($11.95 for a license). It's no secret that now with larger hard drives and plentiful RAM, that in general, programmers don't write code as tight as they used to. The issue is compounded further on Macs as programs have to be written to run on both PowerPC and Intel processors. But do I need the code for both on every Mac I own?
Further, most software programs come ready to run in multiple languages. But do I need to access the Finnish and Korean versions of MS Word on my Mac? Probably not.
Enter Xslimmer, a great little program that does two things: (1) it detects whether you have an Intel or PowerPC processor and removes the code for the other processor, and (2) it strips out unneeded languages from your programs. If you occasionally use more than one language, you can specify in the preferences which language to keep.
Do you think such extra code is insignificant? Consider these representative numbers after I ran Xslimmer on my MacBook:
Notice that after running it on 242 application, I reclaimed over two gigabytes of space! What's more, not only do I save space, but many of these programs that have seen significant reductions, such as some of those shown above, now launch faster because less code is having to be analyzed as the program starts.
Some programs don't work well with Xslimmer though, such as the Adobe CS3 apps which must stay a specific size for verification that they aren't corrupt when updates are run. These programs are "blacklisted" and the software checks itself against an online database as it is scanning a computer. As I ran Xslimmer on my Mac, the only real software I was worried about was Office 2008 which was just released yesterday and installed on my MacBook last night. However, if for some reason I alter a program that should not be altered, the solution is as easy as reinstalling it which won't affect preferences and personal settings.
Further, most software programs come ready to run in multiple languages. But do I need to access the Finnish and Korean versions of MS Word on my Mac? Probably not.
Enter Xslimmer, a great little program that does two things: (1) it detects whether you have an Intel or PowerPC processor and removes the code for the other processor, and (2) it strips out unneeded languages from your programs. If you occasionally use more than one language, you can specify in the preferences which language to keep.
Do you think such extra code is insignificant? Consider these representative numbers after I ran Xslimmer on my MacBook:
Notice that after running it on 242 application, I reclaimed over two gigabytes of space! What's more, not only do I save space, but many of these programs that have seen significant reductions, such as some of those shown above, now launch faster because less code is having to be analyzed as the program starts.
Some programs don't work well with Xslimmer though, such as the Adobe CS3 apps which must stay a specific size for verification that they aren't corrupt when updates are run. These programs are "blacklisted" and the software checks itself against an online database as it is scanning a computer. As I ran Xslimmer on my Mac, the only real software I was worried about was Office 2008 which was just released yesterday and installed on my MacBook last night. However, if for some reason I alter a program that should not be altered, the solution is as easy as reinstalling it which won't affect preferences and personal settings.