Actually, Booger, you'll find that if you Google on how to do just about anything on the Mac, you'll immediately find instructions on how to do it with the included software - it may take you a bit to get accustomed to what keywords to use. There are some things you will need to do a download for, such as ripping DVDs and playing certain media files, but in every case there are clear instructions online. So you'll likely want VLC, DivX, Flip4Mac, and Mac the Ripper as you go forward, but not a ton other than those. Plus installing and uninstalling on the Mac is trivial compared to Windows.