A list of the best software for Mac, Windows, Ubuntu Linux, Android, Software Development, and web browser extensions. Whenever I do a fresh install of a new operating system, I'll go through this list and choose what to install. Unless otherwise noted, all software are free.
I use Mac most of the time now, so this list is rather extensive.
- Google Drive for Desktop - Google's cloud service tied to your Gmail.
- OneDrive - Microsoft's cloud service.
- Brave - My favorite privacy-focused web browser.
- Chrome - Google web browser.
- Firefox - My second favorite browser.
- Microsoft Edge - Microsoft's web browser
- Adobe Acrobat Reader - PDF reader and editor.
- balenaEtcher - Flash OS images to SD cards and USB drives, safely and easily.
- Calibre - One stop solution to e-book needs.
- Discord - Group chat.
- Filezilla - SFTP client.
- Hidden Bar - Hidden lets you hide menu bar items to give your Mac a cleaner look.
- RustDesk - The fast open-source Remote Access and support software. I prefer this over Teamviewer.
- Unarchiver - Decompress zip/rar files.
- World Community Grid - Grid computing.
- Handbrake - Edit/convert videos.
- Streamlink - Command-line utility that extracts streams from various services and pipes them into a video player of choice.
- Spotify - Music player.
- VLC Media Player - The best video/media player for any OS.
- Blender - Open Source 3D Modeling
- Gimp - Edit pictures, a Photoshop-like program that's free.
- Giphy - Capture and create GIFs.
- Google Photos - Google's photo storage.
- Krita - Digital Painting.
- SketchUp Free - 3D Drawing tool (web-based).
- Alfred App - Type what you need or what you want to do.
- F.lux - Automatically adjust your computer screen to match lighting.
- Logi Options+ - Lets you configure your Logitech mouse buttons, keyboard keys, and touchpad to your preference, adjust your lights and webcams to always look your best.
- Glances - System monitoring tool that runs in terminal.
- Obsidian - The free and flexible app for your private thoughts.
- Slack - Collaboration software for teams.
- Trello - Collaborative boards, lists, and cards.
- Zoom - Webcam and collaboration tools.
- 1Password - Password Manager and Secure Wallet.
- Adobe Creative Cloud - Photoshop + Lightroom CC. Well worth the $10/month subscription.
- Bitwarden - Password manager.
- DaisyDisk - Visual breakdown of your disk space.
- ForkLift 4 - Best Finder replacement.
- iStat Menus - System monitor for CPU, memory, HDD, battery, etc.
- Magnet - Window arrangement app.
- NTFS for Mac - Write to NTFS volumes from MacOS.
This list is shorter. Many of the software available for Mac is also available on Windows.
- 7 Zip - Decompress zip/rar files.
- Chocolately - The Package Manager for Windows. Although you should probably be using winget.
- Fox-it PDF Reader - PDF reader.
- Microsoft Defender - Professional-grade, always-on protection for you and your family’s data and devices - for work or life
- PDF-XChange Viewer - Open PDFs.
- Process Explorer - Monitor your system processes.
- Paint .Net - Edit pictures/images.
- PowerToys - Utilities to customize Windows
- Rufus - A utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks, etc.
These are some of my favorite web-browser extensions that I use in Google Chrome and/or Firefox.
- 1Password - Password Manager and Secure Wallet.
- Bitwarden - Password manager extension for Bitwarden.
- Keepa - Amazon price tracker.
- Privacy Badger - Blocks spying ads and invisible trackers.
- DNSlytics - Online DNS investigation tool.
- uBlock Origin Lite - Lightweight ad blocker for browsers that no longer support uBlock Origin.
This list includes development tools for both Mac and Windows. Also see my dotfiles.
- Android Studio - Android SDK and official IDE.
- DiffMerge - Compare your files/directories.
- Google Antigravity - Google's IDE.
- Notepad++ - Text editor with more features on Windows.
- Sublime Text - Text editor.
- Visual Studio Code - Quickly becoming my default code editor over Atom.io.
- DBeaver - Universal SQL Client
- Microsoft SQL Server Developer/Express - Microsoft's SQL Server Developer and Express.
- mySQL WorkBench - SQL IDE for mySQL.
- pgAdmin - SQL IDE for Postgres.
- Postgres.app - Start/stop Postgres db.
- SSMS Tools Pack - SQL Server Management Studio Tools.
- Fishshell - A smart and user-friendly command line shell for macOS, Linux, and the rest of the family.
- Ghostty - a fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform terminal emulator that uses platform-native UI and GPU acceleration.
- GNU Stow - A symlink farm manager.
- Homebrew - Mac package manager.
- Oh my fish - A fish shell framework.
- rbenv - Manage your rubies.
- Starship - The minimal, blazing-fast, and infinitely customizable prompt for any shell!
- WezTerm - a powerful cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer, written in Rust.
- git - Better to install via Homebrew
- Github for Mac - Github for Desktop.
- Git Fork - A fast and friendly git client.
- SourceTree - My main git GUI.
- BitBucket - Host public/private git repos here.
- Cloudflare
- Github - Host public/private repos here.
- Netlify - Deploy projects here for hosting.
- Visual Studio wallpapers
My current favorite flavor of Linux is Xubuntu, but I also like Ubuntu Mate.
- How to create a bootable USB stick on OS X
- How to create a bootable USB stick on Windows
- balenaEtcher - Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives, safely and easily.
I format my external hard drives to exFAT so I can read/write to them from any operating system (OSX, Win, Linux).
sudo apt-get install exfat-utils exfat-fuse
sudo apt-get install boinc-client boinc-manager
sudo apt-get install gparted
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:git-core/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git
sudo apt-get install openssh-server
Also see: SSH/OpenSSH/Configuring
- iCHAIT/awesome-macOS - A software list I've contributed to.
- privacytools.io - Recommended reading for security.