OK to remove apps bundled with Leopard?

Question

Despite having my Macbook for nearly a year (and owning an eMac before that) I am still a bit clueless as to what extent Leopard's pre-installed apps are integrated into the OS. Given that I don't use many of the default OS X apps, I'd prefer to remove some of these rather than have them cluttering up my hard-drive.
However, I've noticed that some apps seem to perform other tasks and provide resources for other programs... and certainly some "alternatives" to the likes of Safari and iTunes rely on those being installed to work.
Can anyone give me a rough idea of which programs I can remove (if any?), and which ones it's a good idea to keep even if I don't use them?
Thanks

Answer 1

The suite of apps bundled with your machine are fantastic. You never know when, somewhere down the line you will decide to use one of them. For example, you may not be a musician and would think Garageband is a waste of your time but somewhere down the line you may need to do some simple editing or even do some kind of recording/podcast.
I deleted iMovie and iDVD on my iBook because it didn't have a DVD burner. This saved tons of space. Now that I have a large hard drive I keep both those apps, even though I only use them from time to time. They are the right tool for the job when I need to do a quick video and burn it on a DVD.
iTunes and iPhoto help you organize your digital media. I don't just organize photos in iPhoto, I also use it to organize a vast quantity of clip art. Other iApps link directly to the iphoto library and allow you to search and paste in clip art without even opening iPhoto. If you have the iWork suite it takes full advantage of this integration.
There is no need to keep Safari, although it is still my favorite browser. Apple has done a great job creating a web browser in minimalist fashion. Safari is simple, powerful and takes up little of your screen. It is also very easy to organize and search bookmarks and history. Safari's new find field is much better than other browsers I have used. You can find a word on a large web page in seconds and Safari highlights it for you so you can see it easily.
Mail may not be robust enough for some but I love smart mailboxes and Mail's junk filter. Very few spam items see my inbox. Mail's integration with Address Book is excellent.
iWeb allows you to make a web page in seconds and post it to the net. I have used it for a large website with many pages, photo pages, file sharing, etc. If you have a .Me account, publishing to the web is a simple click of a button.
Some people's needs are simple or there are third party utilities that people like better. Personally, I spend about 80% of the time using iApps and 20% using some excellent third party apps.
Give a list of the apps you have questions about and we will tell you what they are used for and if it is a good idea to get rid of them.
Kurt