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Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?
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Re: Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?
#2Heres 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.
Re: Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?
#3Heres 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 ar…
pretty good. Which browser do you use?
Re: Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?
#4Handy, 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.
Re: Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?
#5Heres 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 ar…
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.
Re: Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?
#6Magnet 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.
Re: Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?
#7Hammerspoon,
Little snitch,
iTerm2,
Chezmoi,
Orion
Re: Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?
#8Malwarebytes, Microsoft Office. That's the software I'll install when I buy a new device.
Re: Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?
#9Package 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
Re: Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?
#10Raycast (also does window management, dictation), Chrome, Ghostty, Karabiner..