Perian, the "Swiss Army knife for QuickTime," has decided to cease development after six years on the market. The Perian team posted a notice to its users this week, saying that the software is "as complete as it will ever be under our stewardship." Though we can't disagree with the team's reason for wanting to move on, Perian's retirement is a bittersweet reminder of the earlier days of Apple, when watching videos of different codecs was a challenge on the Mac.

Perian made its debut in 2006 as freeware that allowed users to view a plethora of codecs that QuickTime didn't support natively, including DivX, XviD, 3viX, and FLV, with plans for both Matroska and Ogg. When Ars interviewed Perian lead developer Augie Fackler in 2006, he told us that Perian wasn't so much meant to replace VLC—another popular video-watching option—but rather to make it possible to watch videos natively in places like Finder previews and Front Row.

The software saw active support for several years after its launch, but the team felt there was only so far Perian could go. In its notice to users, the team said there would be one final update that will contain fixes since the last release, but that the last update may or may not work under OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion). "Starting 90 days after the final Perian release, we will no longer provide support. We'll wrap up our loose ends, pack up our bags, and move on to new and exciting projects," the Perian team wrote.

Watching videos of various codecs can still be a challenge on the Mac today, but the problem isn't nearly as prominent as it once was. As pointed out by Dan Moren at Macworld, the explosion of iOS device popularity has helped to make H.264 and MPEG4 common distribution formats, rendering software like Perian less necessary for the everyday Mac user. We wouldn't be surprised if many Mac users these days aren't familiar with Perian.

If you're a longtime Perian lover, there's still some hope. Although the original team is moving on, the software may live on. The source code for Perian will be posted to either Google Code or Github after its final release, and developers interested in carrying the torch will be able to catch up by joining #perian on irc.freenode.net. The team says if Perian does eventually stop working, they recommend trying VLC (an old Ars staff favorite) or MPlayer OS X.