Latium

To say that APE can cause kernel panics is a sign of technical ignorance. Because APE does not affect anything on a kernel level, it by definition is isolated from causing panics. My system is stable with multiple APEs installed, including one I've written myself. I know the technology it uses and am quite confident that it can't cause hard lockups or kernel panics, because it only affects desktop applications like the Finder. My suggestion is that you pay attention to other programs that you install, particularly ones that come in .pkg formats, and use a program like Pacifist to check the contents of suspicious addon .pkgs before installing. Doing this will save you more trouble than uninstalling some mostly harmless APEs will.

Too bad Shapeshifter (and many other clever hacks) are based on the APE structure. Despite developer insistence to the contrary, APE alone does cause system problems. Look into the MacFixit forums and see how often uninstalling APE will fix things. For me, my systems crash at least 10 times as frequently with APE installed (sometimes even once a day). Uninstall APE and I'm back up to weeks and weeks of hard-use without a single kernel panic or other serious crash.

Swell! A review by a real person. It's nothing to write home about.