Let’s talk internet.
While your G5 may be outdated compared to newer Macs, the internet is still your friend and very accessible. Thanks to great open source projects and other utilities, the web is wide open. You’ll find recommended web browsers and other applications below. For apps that are free, consider supporting them with donations or notes of gratitude to keep them available for the foreseeable future for our G5 machines.
Last Updated: 2/16/2026
Web Browsing
The most recent option for browsing on your PowerMac G5 is PowerFox. “PowerFox is a secure, modern, and open-source web browser tailored specifically for your PowerPC or Intel Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or 10.6 Snow Leopard.
Bring new life to your aging Mac through a fully-featured web browsing experience.”
An outdated browser for your G5 is TenFourFox.
Leopard-Webkit is another option for PowerPC machines, built off of updates from the WebKit project itself. It’s also out of date and not recommended.
Terminal
Terminal is fine.
If you want, try an old version of iTerm, which enhances your typical terminal experience.
For all of its issues and age, Mail.app remains my standard email client of choice. It still works well with Gmail (for the most part) and other email hosting services. Beyond it, your next best option is to go entirely web-based, using TenFourFox to access your email.
If you do continue to use Mail.app on Leopard, you might want to read this post on System Folder for potential quirks that exist when using services like Gmail.
In the spirit of TenFourFox, TenFourBird tries to keep the now ended Thunderbird email app available for use for PowerPC users. Once upon a time, I used Thunderbird regularly as an email client, but I found ultimately it didn’t offer much over Mail.app. You might find it, however, useful and frequently updated.
FTP
CyberDuck is a free file transfer client with support for stuff like FTP, SFTP, S3, WEBDAV, SSH, and more. It has a ton of features, a really well put together app. You can find it useful to connect to something like Box.net and other file sharing services and allows you to edit html/css/text files on the fly. The last version to work for Leopard is located here, version 4.3.1.
Text Editing
Text Wrangler is a powerful text editor for the Mac. And it’s free, which is always good. Made by Barebones Software, it’s fast, lean, and very flexible. It hooks in with CyberDuck as well for quick and easy editing of html and css files on the fly. The last version for Leopard can be grabbed directly here.
IRC
LimeChat is a solid, minimal IRC client for Mac. Version 2.2.6 (and older versions) are able to run on Leopard. The interface is a little different, but it is very easy to customize and find other themes to make it look gorgeous as you chat. (Oh, and it’s free.)
Adium is the last refuge of instant messengers. I have version 1.4.5 as the last version for PowerPC, but the website suggests I download 1.3.10. Meanwhile, does anyone even do instant messaging anymore?
Sadly, Twitter has changed to the point that existing PowerPC compatible apps for Mac cannot login or display their feeds. I have not been able to find a working client – all of my old ones long since have stopped working or are incompatible. Click the link above to use the mobile twitter site, which is a reasonable work around.
Here are some twitter workarounds:
- Use Fluid to create a TweetDeck like web app. Interesting.
- PowerPC 10.4 Client: A simple AppleScript based Twitter client. Worth a shot if you need it that bad.
File Decompression
The Unarchiver is a great replacement for Leopard’s built-in archive utility. You can unpack just about any file downloaded over the internet, even more obscure compression packages. Version 3.9.1 is the latest for Leopard. Again, it’s free. You’ll want to download the legacy version of the app from that page above.
Bittorrent
Transmission (version 2.22) is the recommended version of this popular BitTorrent client for Mac. It’s great software with tons of features. However, like all things PowerPC, it hasn’t been updated recently.
BitTorrent is the official BitTorrent client. The latest version for PowerPC is 7.3.5. You may find it has more features or stability than Transmission, so give both a shot.
VNC
Chicken (formerly Chicken of the VNC) is a great VNC client for Mac that lets you use remote desktop features of Mac OS X and other operating systems. It is still maintained. The latest version is 2.2b2. Grab it and enjoy.