Freeware February: WinSwitch

Panther's Fast User Switching sure is convenient, but unless your name is IM Pei you're robbing yourself of valuable menubar real estate when you enable it.

WinSwitch gives you your menubar back. Even if your name happens to be Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff, Sr.

WinSwitch, by Wincent Software, gives you the option of displaying an icon, short name, first name or initials instead of your long account user name in the menu bar, and also enables the Root user login option from the menu. WinSwitch is self-contained and doesn't install any hooks into the operating system. When you install WinSwitch you are not overwriting Apple's menu; you are merely installing an alternative which happens to work much better. If for some reason you don't like it, it's easy to remove by simply dragging it out of your menubar and deleting the bundle.

There's not much else to say about this freeware gem. It's one of those apps that does one thing and does it exceptionally well. What more can you ask for free?