Curse Client for Mac v4 reviewed

Curse Client version 4 for Mac has been in open alpha for some time now, and I'm happy to report it's pretty good -- far better than version 3 ever was. I have no idea how the Windows version is, but the Mac one is probably better than WoWMatrix ever was, from a usability standpoint, without that nagging "steals bandwidth from hosting sites" issue.

Things I like about it:

• It's pretty fast. It doesn't lock up for seconds at a time, and it doesn't max out my CPU.

• It works well with links on the Curse site to install addons; it also makes it pretty easy to get new addons from within the updater.

• It's easy to update all your addons; one click does it.

• The changelog for a new version is pretty easy to bring up, in case you're wondering whether to update.

Things I don't like as much:

• The icons on the "Update All," "Install/Update," and "Uninstall" buttons are completely unintuitive, especially the relationship between "Update" and "Update All." Since when does a circle mean "all"?

• There are still some addons that aren't in Curse's database. That's not really Curse's fault, but it does hurt how useful the app is a bit.

• The fact that you have to mouse over an app in the preferences dialog to see the path to the app is absurd. The path should be below the app name in (possibly smaller) gray text.

• "Get More Addons" should not display addons you already have.

• The icon is too shiny. (I know, I know. But it is.)

As you can see, though, the points I like are much bigger than the points I don't. Most of the minuses are little details. It's worth noting that I think the Update All functionality is limited to premium accounts (which Curse seems to have given me one of for free); I tried to make a regular account to test, but that one seemed to be flagged as premium too. I'm not sure what the deal is there.

Anyway, if you haven't used the Mac Curse Client since v3, it's worth giving v4 a look. You're likely to be pleasantly surprised. I would also like to say to the Curse dev team (if you're reading) that you've made huge progress in this version, and I really enjoy it.
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