A friend of mine is buying his first Mac, so here’s a list I made for him for essential software.

• Chrome for web browsing with LastPass for passwords.
• Alfred for launching apps, small actions, etc. I can’t imagine using MacOS without it.
• iTerm2 for terminal windows.
• Homebrew for Unix tools. It’s not awesome, but the best option.
• Sublime Text for text editing.
• nvALT for note taking.
• Adium for instant messaging.
• VLC for playing video and audio. Plex for networked serving of video.