my new 24" imac was burning my eyes out until i found this great app about a week ago. it may seem a bit odd to give an app an excellent rating, but not recommend it. here is my explanation.

i rarely leave comments on apps i learn about from versiontracker, but after using this one for a week, i was coming back to vt to sing the praises of this great little utility. my new 24" imac is so ridiculously bright, and the normal brightness control in display system prefs only dims the display to what i would call a normal brightness. it was unbearable working at night with the room lights dimmed.

i am grateful to cdiggy for alerting me to shades, which is indeed the only way to go, now that i know about it, but cdiggy's review is unnecessarily harsh. the only way i would give a freeware app a poor rating is if it was malicious or destructive. it is truly shameful to take and use an app for years (especially freeware) and give it a poor rating, just because you found a better app.

this is a typical example of why i love versiontracker's reviews to find good apps. if you find something that is rated 4 or 5 stars, you can bet it is awesome, because so many people expect commercial quality from a freeware app.

btw, that's what you get from shades. shareware or commercial quality with a freeware license. if Shades - 1.2b2 (current version as of this review) was shareware or commercial, i would have recommended brightness control, by virtue of price.