TinkerTool System - 2.1.1

I've long been aware of TinkerTool System since it was first released, but hadn't bothered with it much until a few months ago when I began looking more intensely at it and some other various system and disk maintenance utilities. I've long used apps like Onyx and IceClean and had avoided TinkerTool System because it duplicates many of the features that those free utilities offer. However, TinkerTool System does far more than what those do and ultimately is a complete suite of system maintenance tools that otherwise would require a collection of 3-8 other applications that aren't all free. In many cases, it does a better job than the rest.

While going over all its features would be overkill here, I'll highlight some standouts. TinkerTool System's Application Uninstallation Assistant is one example that does a more thorough job than any other comparable tool out there. AppDelete, AppZapper, and the others all promise to delete the support files for applications when you use their tools. But those all fail to delete the support files for all users... they only operate on the user you are logged into. TinkerTool System is the sole exception to this... it will go through all users if you desire and purge the same user-specific support files.

One of its modules, ACL Permissions, is a tool with features I've only seen in a couple of other apps, one called iRepair and another called ACL Fix, neither of which have been updated since 2007/2008. There may be others, but I haven't found them yet, while TinkerTool System does those tasks very thoroughly and is actively maintained. I've only recently started TinkerTool System so I can't credit it for a serious permissions problem that ACL Fix repaired for me a couple years ago after all else failed when I migrated from Tiger to Leopard, but TinkerTool System is capable of the same feats and since it is being actively maintained, I can count on it in the future.

Bottom line... while TinkerTool System does duplicate many of the features that can be found for free in other maintenance utilities, it has added value with other features found in other software that you might have to pay for or aren't actively maintained. It often does these better, and for a price that is actually much less than the sum of its components if you went elsewhere. It is very much a complete suite that leaves little to be desired when it comes to maintaining OS X, and I now consider it to be a must-have maintenance tool.

I'm a big fan of TinkerTool and TinkerTool System, but there are a few negative aspects with this new version:

As others have mentioned, there's no discounted price for owners of version one. The reason according to their website is that "The efforts to check legitimacy of the upgrade buyers would be higher than the product price."
I'm not sure about this. I would gladly provide them with my registration information so the effort would be on my part and not theirs. If 2 or more people provide identical information they could ban those serials.

The software itself received a change in the GUI. Navigation now requires an additional step. With the original version, users could select an icon on the toolbar and go directly to a specific feature (e.g., Maintenance, Clean Up, Files, etc.). With the revised version users have to "Show All" features and then select one. I did not find this as efficient as the previous version.

For evaluation purposes "You can launch the application five (5) times per computer only." Unfortunately, some features require multiple launches. For example, I cleared my font cache and had to logout. After login TTS2 was automatically launched to finish the task, so 2 out of 5 launches were used testing a single feature.

TinkerTool System 2 adds many features as well as Snow Leopard compatibility. For new users it may be worth it. In my case I see no reason to upgrade. I would rate the previous version with 5 stars, but with the lack of upgrade discount, the limited demo, and the inefficient interface, version 2 is not worthy of the same rating.