Xslimmer is an effective shareware tool that costs a lot less than buying an brand-new hard drive, even at the plummeting cost of memory.

For just over $10, Xslimmer will sweep your Applications folder and remove all the excess code from your program installers that you don't need. For example, if you've got an Intel processor, Xslimmer will cut down iTunes from 129MB to 31.6MB: that's gastric bypass surgery but for your computer.

You can drag and drop specific programs into the main Xslimmer window, or you can hit the Genie button and it'll add every program it can find on your machine. Once you're ready to go, hit the Slim! button in the lower-right corner and Xslimmer rips out unnecessary weight from your apps. Other buttons on the nav include Stop to halt the process, Clear to remove all unselected files, and Reveal to show the selected program in Finder. History reveals your behavior log.

There are some programs that are internally blocked by Xslimmer itself from the process--Safari is one that's blacklisted--but the app will make backups for you just in case you mess something up. The trial version limits users to liposuctioning 50MB. If you want to remove anything more, you'll have to pay.