4 ms·

Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?

19 points by simonebrunozzi 4mo ago

CobaltFire 4mo ago
Heres my list: Transnomino (https://www.transnomino.com/ https://www.transnomino.com/) StillColor (https://github.com/aiaf/Stillcolor https://github.com/aiaf/Stillcolor) SublimeText (https://www.sublimetext.com/ https://www.sublimetext.com/) Homebrew (https://brew.sh/ https://brew.sh/) VLC (https://www.videolan.org/ https://www.videolan.org/) Macs Fan Control (https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control) Rectangle (https://rectangleapp.com/ https://rectangleapp.com/) NetBird (https://netbird.io/ https://netbird.io/) Obsidian (https://obsidian.md/ 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.
- simonebrunozzi 4mo ago
  pretty good. Which browser do you use?
  - CobaltFire 4mo ago
    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.
smcleod 4mo ago
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.
bobbiechen 4mo ago
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.
mortar 4mo ago
Hammerspoon, Little snitch, iTerm2, Chezmoi, Orion
mankhb2k 4mo ago
Malwarebytes, Microsoft Office. That's the software I'll install when I buy a new device.
unmanageduck 4mo ago
Package manager: Nix(alternative to homebrew) https://nixos.org/download/#nix-install-macos https://nixos.org/download/#nix-install-macos Package management: Nix-darwin https://github.com/nix-darwin/nix-darwin https://github.com/nix-darwin/nix-darwin Browsers: - Librewolf https://librewolf.net https://librewolf.net - Tor https://www.torproject.org https://www.torproject.org - Orion https://orionbrowser.com https://orionbrowser.com Video downloader: Yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp Video/audio player: Mpv https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv Video editor: LosslessCut https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut Video encoding: Ffmpeg https://search.nixos.org/packages?&query=ffmpeg https://search.nixos.org/packages?&query=ffmpeg Office suite: LibreOffice https://www.libreoffice.org https://www.libreoffice.org IDE: Zed https://github.com/zed-industries/zed https://github.com/zed-industries/zed Window management: Rectangle https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle Menubar system monitor: Stats https://github.com/exelban/stats https://github.com/exelban/stats Screen tweaks: MonitorControl https://github.com/MonitorControl/MonitorControl https://github.com/MonitorControl/MonitorControl Autorun checker: KnockKnock https://github.com/objective-see/KnockKnock https://github.com/objective-see/KnockKnock Video streaming platforms: Grayjay https://grayjay.app/desktop https://grayjay.app/desktop Communication: Signal https://signal.org/download/macos https://signal.org/download/macos Torrenting: Transmission https://github.com/transmission/transmission https://github.com/transmission/transmission VPN: Mullvad https://mullvad.net/en/download/vpn/macos https://mullvad.net/en/download/vpn/macos DNS: NextDNS https://nextdns.io 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 https://tailscale.com/download/mac
swah 4mo ago
Raycast (also does window management, dictation), Chrome, Ghostty, Karabiner..
k310 4mo ago
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.
al_borland 4mo ago
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.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
imagetic 4mo ago
Firefox Nightly - https://www.firefox.com/en-US/channel/desktop https://www.firefox.com/en-US/channel/desktop uBlock Origin - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin Ghostty - ghostty.org Homebrew - https://brew.sh https://brew.sh Oh-my-posh - https://github.com/JanDeDobbeleer/oh-my-posh https://github.com/JanDeDobbeleer/oh-my-posh Zed - https://zed.dev https://zed.dev 1Password - https://1password.com https://1password.com Tailscale - https://tailscale.com https://tailscale.com iStats Menu - https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus Little Snitch - https://obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html https://obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html Ice Toolbar Manager - https://icemenubar.app https://icemenubar.app MarkEdit - https://github.com/MarkEdit-app https://github.com/MarkEdit-app Magnet - https://magnet.crowdcafe.co/ https://magnet.crowdcafe.co/ Pi - https://pi.dev https://pi.dev
- FergusArgyll 4mo ago
  https://magnet.crowdcafe.co/ https://magnet.crowdcafe.co/ needs an `m` at the end, https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/ https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/
bl4kers 4mo ago
Whatever you decide it's useful to find things on Homebrew and record in a file. Then you can mass install next time around
kdtsh 4mo ago
Homebrew and mise-en-place are the only must have apps for me (both of which are not .app applications). Everything else is pretty well context-dependant and/or built in. For Homebrew - having used Nix, Macports, and pkgsrc, I found Homebrew easier than everything else. I would like to get into Nix, but there is too much mucking around for it to be worth it to me. mise-en-place has such a unique feature set that I can’t compare it to anything else. I started using it as a replacement for pyenv and sdkman, and found it so helpful. For me, the better-than-you-think built in apps are: - Reminders - I haven’t gone all in on any other task management software, but I don’t bother because Reminders does everything I need - Mail - it is fiddly and idiot proof to a fault, but provided you don’t have an exotic setup and can deal with only average search capabilities, it works well - Calendar - it’s a calendar. Only thing I don’t particularly like is the date-picker interface for new events, and that’s mainly because I like my Sunday-Saturday format - Terminal - it’s tidy and works well. Many swear by iTerm2; I find Terminal good - Safari - does what it says on the tin and does it well, I like Safari. (Edit: I use Wipr2 for Adblock which is necessary) - Passwords - having been a medium-long term user (2-5 years) at various times of both Keepass and Password Store, I ended up transitioning to Passwords because of its good integration with Safari and its sync in iCloud, which is good for family. However the app itself has improved over time as well and I call it good
- soraminazuki 4mo ago
  FYI uBlock Origin Lite is officially available for Safari now.
treetalker 4mo ago
- Alfred (launch bar extraordinaire) - Keyboard Maestro (automation) - TextSoap (clean text with various cleaners [regex etc] that can be saved and invoked on selected text, entire files, or batches of files throughout the system) - Klack is fun to add typing sounds (helps me stay in the zone) - Dark Noise for background noise (stay in the zone) — although MacOS has some background noise generation built in now - 1Blocker (ad and tracker blocking; also for iOS) - Voice Dream Reader (read articles / any text aloud) - Default Folder X (set defaults for how files get saved — e.g., which directory to default to for a given file extension) - Rectangle - Fantastical (calendar with lots of thoughtful additional features) - Karabiner Elements (to turn Caps Lock into a hyper key; right Command key + hjkl into arrow keys; sky's the limit) - TextExpander - Homerow or Shortcat - HoudahSpot (great file search utility; can save searches, save templates, and export Smart Folders) - OmniFocus (to-do / task management; GTD-centric) - TaskPaper - Good outliners: OmniOutliner, Bike - nvALT (barely alive; Brett Terpstra's nvUltra has been on the cusp of release for like 7 years now …)
speedgoose 4mo ago
Homebrew to get a package manager that is not managed by Apple and its many restrictions and high fees. AltTab and Rectangle to have more features to manage windows. Ghostty can replace Terminal.app though I think it leaks memory. Zen Browser is Firefox with an Arc inspired interface. It's slow and heavy but it blocks ads and trackers a bit better than Chromium based browsers, or Safari.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
knowald 4mo ago
[flagged]
gsch1 4mo ago
Firefox or Safari for Browser, and just install the apps you need (you should know your must-have)
slipwalker 4mo ago
homebrew ( indispensable ! all the other apps below are installed/managed via homebrew ): - raycast ( keyboard shortcuts for clipboard manager, basic window management, pomodoro tracking and app launch ) - stats - ice ( menubar manager ) - theBoringNotch ( to have some use for the annoying notch ) - mole ( storage cleaner ) - wezterm ( inside which i run zsh, tmux, neovim, zoxide, eza, batcat, ripgrep, fzf, fdfind, yazi, btop, lazygit, lazydocker... ) - textmate - iina - zen browser ( with uBlock origin and betterfox settings )
- Ikryanov 4mo ago
  ClipBook
  - slipwalker 4mo ago
    for my needs, raycast suffices, and it is one less app to install.
Kuyawa 4mo ago
Brave, SublimeText and Boss Bottled Elixir, nothing else.

Heres my list: Transnomino (https://www.transnomino.com/ https://www.transnomino.com/) StillColor (https://github.com/aiaf/Stillcolor https://github.com/aiaf/Stillcolor) SublimeText (https://www.sublimetext.com/ https://www.sublimetext.com/) Homebrew (https://brew.sh/ https://brew.sh/) VLC (https://www.videolan.org/ https://www.videolan.org/) Macs Fan Control (https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control) Rectangle (https://rectangleapp.com/ https://rectangleapp.com/) NetBird (https://netbird.io/ https://netbird.io/) Obsidian (https://obsidian.md/ 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.

simonebrunozzi 4mo ago
pretty good. Which browser do you use?
- CobaltFire 4mo ago
  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.

smcleod 4mo ago

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.

bobbiechen 4mo ago

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.

mortar 4mo ago

Hammerspoon, Little snitch, iTerm2, Chezmoi, Orion

mankhb2k 4mo ago

Malwarebytes, Microsoft Office. That's the software I'll install when I buy a new device.

unmanageduck 4mo ago

Package manager: Nix(alternative to homebrew) https://nixos.org/download/#nix-install-macos https://nixos.org/download/#nix-install-macos Package management: Nix-darwin https://github.com/nix-darwin/nix-darwin https://github.com/nix-darwin/nix-darwin Browsers: - Librewolf https://librewolf.net https://librewolf.net - Tor https://www.torproject.org https://www.torproject.org - Orion https://orionbrowser.com https://orionbrowser.com Video downloader: Yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp Video/audio player: Mpv https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv Video editor: LosslessCut https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut Video encoding: Ffmpeg https://search.nixos.org/packages?&query=ffmpeg https://search.nixos.org/packages?&query=ffmpeg Office suite: LibreOffice https://www.libreoffice.org https://www.libreoffice.org IDE: Zed https://github.com/zed-industries/zed https://github.com/zed-industries/zed Window management: Rectangle https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle Menubar system monitor: Stats https://github.com/exelban/stats https://github.com/exelban/stats Screen tweaks: MonitorControl https://github.com/MonitorControl/MonitorControl https://github.com/MonitorControl/MonitorControl Autorun checker: KnockKnock https://github.com/objective-see/KnockKnock https://github.com/objective-see/KnockKnock Video streaming platforms: Grayjay https://grayjay.app/desktop https://grayjay.app/desktop Communication: Signal https://signal.org/download/macos https://signal.org/download/macos Torrenting: Transmission https://github.com/transmission/transmission https://github.com/transmission/transmission VPN: Mullvad https://mullvad.net/en/download/vpn/macos https://mullvad.net/en/download/vpn/macos DNS: NextDNS https://nextdns.io 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 https://tailscale.com/download/mac

swah 4mo ago

Raycast (also does window management, dictation), Chrome, Ghostty, Karabiner..

k310 4mo ago

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.

al_borland 4mo ago

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.

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

imagetic 4mo ago

Firefox Nightly - https://www.firefox.com/en-US/channel/desktop https://www.firefox.com/en-US/channel/desktop uBlock Origin - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin Ghostty - ghostty.org Homebrew - https://brew.sh https://brew.sh Oh-my-posh - https://github.com/JanDeDobbeleer/oh-my-posh https://github.com/JanDeDobbeleer/oh-my-posh Zed - https://zed.dev https://zed.dev 1Password - https://1password.com https://1password.com Tailscale - https://tailscale.com https://tailscale.com iStats Menu - https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus Little Snitch - https://obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html https://obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html Ice Toolbar Manager - https://icemenubar.app https://icemenubar.app MarkEdit - https://github.com/MarkEdit-app https://github.com/MarkEdit-app Magnet - https://magnet.crowdcafe.co/ https://magnet.crowdcafe.co/ Pi - https://pi.dev https://pi.dev

FergusArgyll 4mo ago
https://magnet.crowdcafe.co/ https://magnet.crowdcafe.co/ needs an `m` at the end, https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/ https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/

bl4kers 4mo ago

Whatever you decide it's useful to find things on Homebrew and record in a file. Then you can mass install next time around

kdtsh 4mo ago

Homebrew and mise-en-place are the only must have apps for me (both of which are not .app applications). Everything else is pretty well context-dependant and/or built in. For Homebrew - having used Nix, Macports, and pkgsrc, I found Homebrew easier than everything else. I would like to get into Nix, but there is too much mucking around for it to be worth it to me. mise-en-place has such a unique feature set that I can’t compare it to anything else. I started using it as a replacement for pyenv and sdkman, and found it so helpful. For me, the better-than-you-think built in apps are: - Reminders - I haven’t gone all in on any other task management software, but I don’t bother because Reminders does everything I need - Mail - it is fiddly and idiot proof to a fault, but provided you don’t have an exotic setup and can deal with only average search capabilities, it works well - Calendar - it’s a calendar. Only thing I don’t particularly like is the date-picker interface for new events, and that’s mainly because I like my Sunday-Saturday format - Terminal - it’s tidy and works well. Many swear by iTerm2; I find Terminal good - Safari - does what it says on the tin and does it well, I like Safari. (Edit: I use Wipr2 for Adblock which is necessary) - Passwords - having been a medium-long term user (2-5 years) at various times of both Keepass and Password Store, I ended up transitioning to Passwords because of its good integration with Safari and its sync in iCloud, which is good for family. However the app itself has improved over time as well and I call it good

soraminazuki 4mo ago
FYI uBlock Origin Lite is officially available for Safari now.

treetalker 4mo ago

- Alfred (launch bar extraordinaire) - Keyboard Maestro (automation) - TextSoap (clean text with various cleaners [regex etc] that can be saved and invoked on selected text, entire files, or batches of files throughout the system) - Klack is fun to add typing sounds (helps me stay in the zone) - Dark Noise for background noise (stay in the zone) — although MacOS has some background noise generation built in now - 1Blocker (ad and tracker blocking; also for iOS) - Voice Dream Reader (read articles / any text aloud) - Default Folder X (set defaults for how files get saved — e.g., which directory to default to for a given file extension) - Rectangle - Fantastical (calendar with lots of thoughtful additional features) - Karabiner Elements (to turn Caps Lock into a hyper key; right Command key + hjkl into arrow keys; sky's the limit) - TextExpander - Homerow or Shortcat - HoudahSpot (great file search utility; can save searches, save templates, and export Smart Folders) - OmniFocus (to-do / task management; GTD-centric) - TaskPaper - Good outliners: OmniOutliner, Bike - nvALT (barely alive; Brett Terpstra's nvUltra has been on the cusp of release for like 7 years now …)

speedgoose 4mo ago

Homebrew to get a package manager that is not managed by Apple and its many restrictions and high fees. AltTab and Rectangle to have more features to manage windows. Ghostty can replace Terminal.app though I think it leaks memory. Zen Browser is Firefox with an Arc inspired interface. It's slow and heavy but it blocks ads and trackers a bit better than Chromium based browsers, or Safari.

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

knowald 4mo ago

[flagged]

gsch1 4mo ago

Firefox or Safari for Browser, and just install the apps you need (you should know your must-have)

slipwalker 4mo ago

homebrew ( indispensable ! all the other apps below are installed/managed via homebrew ): - raycast ( keyboard shortcuts for clipboard manager, basic window management, pomodoro tracking and app launch ) - stats - ice ( menubar manager ) - theBoringNotch ( to have some use for the annoying notch ) - mole ( storage cleaner ) - wezterm ( inside which i run zsh, tmux, neovim, zoxide, eza, batcat, ripgrep, fzf, fdfind, yazi, btop, lazygit, lazydocker... ) - textmate - iina - zen browser ( with uBlock origin and betterfox settings )

Ikryanov 4mo ago
ClipBook
- slipwalker 4mo ago
  for my needs, raycast suffices, and it is one less app to install.

Kuyawa 4mo ago

Brave, SublimeText and Boss Bottled Elixir, nothing else.