Posted by simonebrunozzi 23 hours ago
Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?
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.
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