1/4

When Pacifist first came out, people were understandably amazed. Judging by past Pacifist reviews, they were expecting something really impressive…but instead they got a great Leopard data file cleanup utility. Pacifist comes with a free scan so you know what’s hiding on your Leopard system. It’s really very simple: you just click the “scan” button on the bottom left and then the “run” button on the right side of the window. Once the utility has done its job, you’ll see a list of all installed programs on your PC (with an explanation of each), as well as their version numbers, how many megabytes they consume, their duration (how long they’ve been used for), and their location on your computer. PC (where it is).

The next feature of Pacifist that I would like to discuss is the ability to remove garbage. The utility allows you to perform a thorough scan of your entire desktop and recycle bin to look for any suspicious entries that could be signs of malicious activity. You can also view detailed information about each file, including file size, modification time, permissions, and more. But probably as interesting as the information it gives you about each specific file is the fact that it allows you to run any specific file in several different ways, like emptying the trash, hiding it, or deleting it permanently. As described in the overview, another great advantage is that it allows you to easily check installations and even install or remove any file from a downloaded package.

Pacifist has a few minor flaws, mostly the built-in defrag doesn’t work very well on Leopard (or anywhere else for that matter). The scan also favors Leopard over Linux, probably because it’s a Windows system. Also, launching any particular file with the trash option in Pacifist while you’re in the middle of another application will crash your computer, which isn’t very helpful. However, these are only minor inconveniences compared to what you get with Pacifist, which allows you to resign yourself to the fact that your hard drive will always be safe and sound, even when you least expect it.