Macs are great for all types of people, from professionals to creators. They perform well, have a great selection of apps, and are well built. However, a couple of apps exclusive to Windows that many Mac users would love to use on their system. Luckily, there is a way out.
To run Windows apps on a Mac computer, you will need an emulator or a virtualization tool. There are plenty of such apps available for Mac OS, which work great. Before we list the best Windows emulators for Mac, let’s understand how it works.
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There are two types of tools that you can use to run Windows apps on Mac. You have the virtualization tools, which use the Mac hardware to provide the best possible performance. However, not all apps are compatible with Mac’s hardware, so most people prefer emulators.
With emulation, all of the hardware components are replaced by software. You can run a full Windows machine on an emulated server, but it may affect performance. However, since this is all software, you will be able to run apps that aren’t compatible with your Mac hardware.
Tip: You can also run old games on a Mac computer using this method.
Boot Camp is Apple’s tool that comes built-in on Mac computers. The program, called Boot Camp Assistant, is accessible from the Utilities section in the Applications folder. Unlike other tools, this one lets you install Windows on your Mac computer and dual-boot while utilizing full hardware.
This means that you will have both Windows and macOS installed in two separate partitions on the hard drive or SSD. When you turn on the Mac, you will get an option to boot into Windows or macOS.
You can run all Windows apps and games natively on your Mac by booting into Windows. The only disadvantage is that you will not have access to any macOS files or apps when you’re using Windows, and vice versa. Hence, you’ll always need to switch between the two operating systems if you need to use a non-compatible app.
Note: As of now, Boot Camp is only compatible with Intel machines and doesn’t work with the newer Apple M1 Macs.
Price: Free
This is a virtualization tool that’s going to cost you some money. Unlike the free Boot Camp, VMWare Fusion is a virtual machine that lets you run Windows OS inside a window on your Mac, like any other app.
This allows you to use your Mac apps in the background while you’re rummaging around the Windows operating system. The best part is that the latest version of VMWare Fusion works great with Big Sur. If you own a newer MacBook with a Touch Bar, you can use it with Windows apps.
VMWare Fusion also lets you expand Windows to a full window if that’s how you like it and run your Windows apps with ease. There’s a Unity mode that will allow you to run the Windows File Browser as an app in macOS.
Price: $149 (30-day, fully-functional, free trial without registration)
Parallels Desktop is similar to VMWare Fusion but with better support for Mac computers. The latest version of the program will also support the new Apple M1 Macs. This tool gets an update every year, keeping it up to date with the latest macOS.
This app creates a virtual machine that lets you install Windows OS on it. You can then run Windows apps and some games as well.
With Parallels Desktop, you can run Windows OS within the macOS without having to reboot the computer. It’s easy to install and works flawlessly. The tool requires an annual subscription, which starts from $79.99, making it not as great a deal as VMWare Fusion.
However, this has better stability, performance and works smoother with the latest macOS.
Price: $79.99
VirtualBox lets you create a virtual machine on Mac to run Windows and Windows apps without rebooting. For personal or educational use, the software is free to use.
Although it’s not as well written and isn’t as easy to set up as some of the other tools on the list, it is free for customers. In its latest avatar, the tool offers improved support for Windows games, apps, audio, and 3D graphics, making it good free software.
For businesses, a paid version is available that offers IT support and better features. It offers good hardware support, which means that things such as cameras, connected printers, and other peripherals will work well.
Price: Free
If you’re using an older version of macOS, say before Catalina, this is one of the best free apps to use. Wine is beneficial if you plan on running only one or two Windows apps on your Mac. The tool doesn’t run Windows operating system on your Mac as a virtual machine, which means you don’t have to buy a Windows license.
For those who’re running newer macOS versions (macOS Catalina and later), there are plenty of unofficial versions of Wine.
Wine is open source, which makes it free to download and use. It doesn’t come with any support, so you’ll need to install and run it yourself or with Google’s help. Wine also stands for ‘Wine is not an emulator,’ which makes perfect sense as it’s a tool that only runs Windows apps.
Price: Free
CrossOver is a form of Wine that’s been developed by CodeWeavers. Once again, it doesn’t run a virtual machine on your Mac, and you don’t have to download Windows or get a license.
You can simply run the Windows app without having to reboot, right alongside the Mac apps. It is popular as the tool supports various Windows apps and games.
Price: Starts at $9.95
The best way to play PC games on your Mac is by installing Boot Camp and dual-booting into Windows OS. This ensures that even graphic-intensive games will work smoothly with the hardware on your Intel Mac. You can also use several other tools or apps to play Windows games on Mac.
For Intel Macs, Boot Camp is probably the best tool to run Windows without issues. I’d also suggest programs such as VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop. These two are excellent emulators and work great.
Not really. Running a virtual machine and installing Windows on it will obviously eat up more RAM and CPU, which will slow down your Mac. However, it won’t cause any hardware problems as such. Your Mac should perform normally once the virtualization tool has been removed.
As I wrap-up this article on the best Windows emulators for Mac, I would like to mention that although people use virtualization and emulation interchangeably today, the above tools are virtualization tools.
Emulators were only required for older Macs with PowerPC hardware. On those devices, it wasn’t easy to run Windows OS. Running the operating system virtually is possible with Intel Macs, and it lets you install your favorite Windows apps or games.
Whichever tool you use, it will be able to handle most Windows apps with ease. I would recommend Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion, as these are the best, but they cost money.
Ultimately, it all depends on what apps you want to use and if you’re willing to pay for it or not. For Intel Macs, I’d recommend using the Boot Camp Assistant, which is free and easy to set up.
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I regularly “Reset my safari” or “Clear Recent History” in my web browser, once i finished my web browsing. That cleans up all my browsing activity from the moment i launched my web browser. That is it ? absolutely not. There are still more chances of being tracked, monitored or leave some traces of your browsing data somewhere inside your Mac OS X. Flash cookies or Super cookies which are stored outside your browser cookies folder can one best place to get more data about the websites you have visited, browser, operating system version, IP address and more about you and your internet activity.
Privacy matters a lot. Why leave traces when you can clean them up completely ? It is important to clean mac to keep the performance top notch and protect your privacy as well. First, i like to recommend a manual way to remove flash cookies on mac. It requires just a couple of steps actually, so you dont need to remember a lot of steps everytime when you need to clean flash cookies on mac.
Step 1: Open “Finder” and navigate to the control options and select “Go”.
Step 2: Click on “Go to Folder” and copy, paste the following link in the text box
~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects
Select all the files and folder and move them to Trash.
Step 3: Again click on “Go to Folder” and copy, paste the following link in the text box.
~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys
Select all the files and folders and delete them by moving to Trash. That is it. You can do this step whenever you like to clean or delete your browsing activity completely after using the browser default cleaning feature. The default browser based clear history feature can only delete your History, Browser stored website cookies and so on. But flash cookies are stored outside your web browser and not visible to your browser.
Flash Cookies on Windows or Mac are the new way of tracking your internet activity that stores lot more information about you than any other default cookies actually stored by web browser or other scripts, softwares that you use. The default web browser cookies can store only 4 Kilobytes of data as the maximum data in it. But Flash Cookies can store up to 100 Kilobytes of data.
Each time you visit a website that has Adobe Flash content embedded in it, then your Flash Cookie generated and stored in a secret folder as mentioned above in the steps. So it is important to search and delete flash cookies to make sure there is no traces of your internet activity actually present in the computer.
You can delete flash cookies using a third party software and we always have one such best software here as a recommendation to you. Mackeeper for Mac OS X and PCKeeper for Windows PC users. They are one of the best when it comes to cleaning your Mac OS X Lion and Mountain Lion. You may read mackeeper review before purchasing it for your OS X. For keeping your PC clean and performance boosted, go for PC Keeper which is a very effective software to clean and protect your Windows PC from Internet attacks and Threats as well.
Mackeeper do comes with Internet Security feature added, which makes it as one of the best app for cleaning your Mac OS X. It is combined with plenty of utilities that you can use to make several tasks easier. Shredder, Files Duplicate Finder, Fast Cleanup, Anti Theft protection and so many.
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