AppCleaner, Full Featured Free Uninstaller

Not that long ago, the concept of uninstalling in OS X was a foreign one. Very few applications actually spread their files around so much that an uninstaller is actually needed and these applications usually come with their own, specialized uninstaller procedure. This is true even today and while there are a lot of uninstaller applications out there, their main purpose is not removal of the application itself, but of the additional files associated with it, such as preferences, logs, caches and receipts. These additional files allow you to keep your setting independent of the application itself, so that even if you remove the application, you can reinstall it at any time and it will be like you never left. As such, OS X uninstallers are only really good for trashing applications you want gone for good, as well as removing those harder to find components such as contextual menus, widgets and various other plug-ins. There are many choices, but one of the best ones is AppCleaner.

What it does
AppCleaner is an uninstaller application that will help remove other programs as well as their additional files, locate and remove applications that you might not even know you had, as well as get rid of system components that you would usually have to dig around for. It does its job with style and grace and is very accessible.

Working with it
AppCleaner lets you uninstall things, whether they are widgets, system preferences, or applications. The main method of interaction with it is simply drag and drop, either onto the dock icon or onto its uninstall window. In order to drag and drop onto the window, you must be in the Uninstall tab, so this can be a little annoying, but the dock icon always works and is thus the better choice.

Other than the standard uninstall, AppCleaner will also let you browse through all the applications on your computer and decide which ones you want to get rid of. Unlike other programs that only look in the Applications folder in order to come up with a list of applications, AppCleaner does a thorough job of looking everywhere, absolutely everywhere. It will search for all available drives, even removable ones and it will locate applications no matter where they are hidden, even inside other application packages. It showed me applications hidden and forgotten in the most obscure of places, which I had forgotten about for years.
Once an application has been chosen for termination, AppCleaner will automatically search for all other files associated with it and present you a final list that you can handpick and then trash.

When it comes to widgets and components, things are much simpler, because there are only a few specific places to search, but the application brings everything together so you don't need to start rummaging around the system folders to locate that pesky contextual menu plugin.

Cube interface
One of the things that stand out about AppCleaner is its interface. The program only has one window and whenever you move around the various 'tabs' it will do a little cube rotate animation and present the new tab as if it were on another side of a cube. The program even keeps track of the placement of the tabs one relative to the other, judging by the toolbar and will properly rotate the cube clockwise or counterclockwise in each case.

Now, while this interface is nice and animated and full of goodness, it is also something else� slow. The rotating cube starts becoming a bother if you actually spend any mount of time in the application beyond one uninstall. The forced delay between clicking on something and seeing the result becomes very annoying quickly and the visual appeal of the rotating cube is pointless.
Unfortunately, there is no preference to turn it off, so you have to grind your teeth and bear with it.

The animations stand out most when browsing the applications list and uninstalling, simply because once you choose an application, the cube will rotate left, show the uninstall tab, only to rotate right a split second later and show all the files associated with that application. Also particularly annoying is the fact that if you are browsing applications, or anything else and select an application for removal but then change your mind, it will take you back to the uninstall tab instead of the one you were in before.
This is particularly bad when you have a very long list of applications, as you will lose track of where you were. For some despicable reason, the lists are not sorted, by any criteria. The program just dumps everything in the order it finds it while it parses the hard drive.

The Good
Has all the options of such uninstaller applications and is incredibly accessible.

The Bad
The interface is what lets this application down a bit. The animations look good the first time around, but they really hinder functionality and the lists are a horrid disorganized mess.

The Truth
AppCleaner does everything other Uninstaller applications do, even the commercial ones and it even does some things better. The interface is pesky if you make frequent use of it, but it is still functional.

Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge: