A review on the available candidates in the quest for the least coordinating anion and a summary of new applications, available starting materials, and general strategies to introduce a WCA into a system. Some of the unusual properties of WCA salts such as high soly. in low dielec. media, pseudo gas-phase conditions in condensed phases, and the stabilization of weakly bound and low-charged complexes are rationalized on thermodn. grounds. Limits of the WCAs, i.e., anion coordination and decompn., are shown and a quantum chem. anal. of all types of WCAs is presented which allows the choice of a particular WCA to be based on quant. data from a wide range of different anions. [on SciFinder (R)]