11 points | by simonebrunozzi 5 hours ago ago
11 comments
I always come back to Safari.
I’d install apps based on your needs. If you install other people’s must-have apps, you’re not going to have such a clean install anymore.
Ublock-origin with Firefox, Audacity, Batch Photo Resizer, calibre, cardflow, Diffraction, Ejimo and Ultra Character Map (try finding emojis without them), Libre Office, Paprika Recipe Manager, Samurai Safe, SeaMonkey (who else edits HTML?) GIMP, Darktable, RawTherapee, Super Photo Upscaler, Sublime Text, VLC, Clearview (and why isn't epub supported natively?), PhotoSync (share photos with all platforms), GhostText for editing browser text areas with Sublime Text or other. (life-saver)
Ones I actually use.
Heres my list:
Transnomino (https://www.transnomino.com/)
StillColor (https://github.com/aiaf/Stillcolor)
SublimeText (https://www.sublimetext.com/)
Homebrew (https://brew.sh/)
VLC (https://www.videolan.org/)
Macs Fan Control (https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control)
Rectangle (https://rectangleapp.com/)
NetBird (https://netbird.io/)
Obsidian (https://obsidian.md/)
Honestly its not huge and most are probably obvious, but those are what I immediately install on my machines. Looking forward to seeing alternatives or new must-haves.
pretty good. Which browser do you use?
Safari for most things, Chromium if I have to for something.
I didn't toss those there because those (and IDEs and SSH/Terminal clients) are very opinionated and everyone has their favorites.
Raycast (also does window management, dictation), Chrome, Ghostty, Karabiner..
Handy, Cotypist, Markedit, Ghostty Tip, BetterTouchTool, GoodLinks, Pixelmator Pro, Handbrake, Zed, Onyx, LittleSnitch (or LuLu), Chezmoi, Stats, Shottr, llama.cpp, oMLX, LM Studio, Parcel, Things, OrbStack, Msty Studio.
Magnet app (for window splitting) is usually one of my first installs. I think I paid like $7 for it years ago and it's well worth it.
Malwarebytes, Microsoft Office. That's the software I'll install when I buy a new device.
Hammerspoon, Little snitch, iTerm2, Chezmoi, Orion
Package manager: Nix(alternative to homebrew) https://nixos.org/download/#nix-install-macos
Package management: Nix-darwin https://github.com/nix-darwin/nix-darwin
Browsers: - Librewolf https://librewolf.net - Tor https://www.torproject.org - Orion https://orionbrowser.com
Video downloader: Yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp
Video/audio player: Mpv https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv
Video editor: LosslessCut https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut
Video encoding: Ffmpeg https://search.nixos.org/packages?&query=ffmpeg
Office suite: LibreOffice https://www.libreoffice.org
IDE: Zed https://github.com/zed-industries/zed
Window management: Rectangle https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
Menubar system monitor: Stats https://github.com/exelban/stats
Screen tweaks: MonitorControl https://github.com/MonitorControl/MonitorControl
Autorun checker: KnockKnock https://github.com/objective-see/KnockKnock
Video streaming platforms: Grayjay https://grayjay.app/desktop
Communication: Signal https://signal.org/download/macos
Torrenting: Transmission https://github.com/transmission/transmission
VPN: Mullvad https://mullvad.net/en/download/vpn/macos
DNS: NextDNS https://nextdns.io
Add the following in denylist to block the constant communication with apple servers:
aaplimg.com
apple-cloudkit.com
apple.com
apple.com.akadns.net
apple.com.edgekey.net
apple-dns.net
apple.news
cdn-apple.com
icloud-content.com
icloud.com
me.com
mzstatic.com
push-apple.com.akadns.net
safebrowsing.apple
Connect to the mac from anywhere: Tailscale https://tailscale.com/download/mac
I always come back to Safari.
I’d install apps based on your needs. If you install other people’s must-have apps, you’re not going to have such a clean install anymore.
Ublock-origin with Firefox, Audacity, Batch Photo Resizer, calibre, cardflow, Diffraction, Ejimo and Ultra Character Map (try finding emojis without them), Libre Office, Paprika Recipe Manager, Samurai Safe, SeaMonkey (who else edits HTML?) GIMP, Darktable, RawTherapee, Super Photo Upscaler, Sublime Text, VLC, Clearview (and why isn't epub supported natively?), PhotoSync (share photos with all platforms), GhostText for editing browser text areas with Sublime Text or other. (life-saver)
Ones I actually use.
Heres my list:
Transnomino (https://www.transnomino.com/)
StillColor (https://github.com/aiaf/Stillcolor)
SublimeText (https://www.sublimetext.com/)
Homebrew (https://brew.sh/)
VLC (https://www.videolan.org/)
Macs Fan Control (https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control)
Rectangle (https://rectangleapp.com/)
NetBird (https://netbird.io/)
Obsidian (https://obsidian.md/)
Honestly its not huge and most are probably obvious, but those are what I immediately install on my machines. Looking forward to seeing alternatives or new must-haves.
pretty good. Which browser do you use?
Safari for most things, Chromium if I have to for something.
I didn't toss those there because those (and IDEs and SSH/Terminal clients) are very opinionated and everyone has their favorites.
Raycast (also does window management, dictation), Chrome, Ghostty, Karabiner..
Handy, Cotypist, Markedit, Ghostty Tip, BetterTouchTool, GoodLinks, Pixelmator Pro, Handbrake, Zed, Onyx, LittleSnitch (or LuLu), Chezmoi, Stats, Shottr, llama.cpp, oMLX, LM Studio, Parcel, Things, OrbStack, Msty Studio.
Magnet app (for window splitting) is usually one of my first installs. I think I paid like $7 for it years ago and it's well worth it.
Malwarebytes, Microsoft Office. That's the software I'll install when I buy a new device.
Hammerspoon, Little snitch, iTerm2, Chezmoi, Orion
Package manager: Nix(alternative to homebrew) https://nixos.org/download/#nix-install-macos
Package management: Nix-darwin https://github.com/nix-darwin/nix-darwin
Browsers: - Librewolf https://librewolf.net - Tor https://www.torproject.org - Orion https://orionbrowser.com
Video downloader: Yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp
Video/audio player: Mpv https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv
Video editor: LosslessCut https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut
Video encoding: Ffmpeg https://search.nixos.org/packages?&query=ffmpeg
Office suite: LibreOffice https://www.libreoffice.org
IDE: Zed https://github.com/zed-industries/zed
Window management: Rectangle https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
Menubar system monitor: Stats https://github.com/exelban/stats
Screen tweaks: MonitorControl https://github.com/MonitorControl/MonitorControl
Autorun checker: KnockKnock https://github.com/objective-see/KnockKnock
Video streaming platforms: Grayjay https://grayjay.app/desktop
Communication: Signal https://signal.org/download/macos
Torrenting: Transmission https://github.com/transmission/transmission
VPN: Mullvad https://mullvad.net/en/download/vpn/macos
DNS: NextDNS https://nextdns.io
Add the following in denylist to block the constant communication with apple servers:
aaplimg.com
apple-cloudkit.com
apple.com
apple.com.akadns.net
apple.com.edgekey.net
apple-dns.net
apple.news
cdn-apple.com
icloud-content.com
icloud.com
me.com
mzstatic.com
push-apple.com.akadns.net
safebrowsing.apple
Connect to the mac from anywhere: Tailscale https://tailscale.com/download/mac