Being a recent Mac convert, one of the more frustrating things to deal with is not knowing which software to use. Apple ships all new Macs with some great bundled software, but not all of these applications are the best out there.

For example, the instant messaging client that comes with a Mac is iChat. This may be a fantastic IM client, but it’s useless to me because it only supports .mac and AIM (which just never caught on in Canada), and everybody I know uses MSN (The offical MSN client for Mac sucks). When you go looking for an alternative, everybody points you to Adium, which is what I’m using now, but there are plenty of others out there to choose from that can be hard to come across.

This is where iusethis.com comes in handy. It’s a cross between digg.com and versiontracker.com. Users submit apps that they use including details like licensing, platform (PPC, Intel, or Universal), and any tags that may help users find the app in a search. The app then shows up on the home page which looks like digg. Users can then click a link to vote for the app, moving it positon higher in whatever tags it’s associated with.

So, when you search for the tag “chat”, right now you get a list of 31 different chat programs for OS X in order of ranking. From there you can see why people like/dislike the app, see a screenshot, or click a download link.

Overall, it’s a great resource for all Mac users. And hopefully soon, there will be versions for Windows and Linux as well.