Default Apps 2024

December 19, 2024

Here are my Default Apps 2024, which builds from my Default Apps 2023 post.

🌐 Browser: Vivaldi + Polypane
🔍 Search: Kagi
📝 Writing: Obsidian + Grammarly
📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud Drive + Syncthing
💬 Chat: Apple Messages (family & friends), Discord (friends), Slack (work and community work), Telegram (weird bots) 📆 Calendar: Apple Calendar
📆 Scheduling + Booking: Cal.com
📹 Video Calls: Zoom + Cal.com + Meeter
🎵 Music. : Apple Music + Spotify
🎤 Podcasts: Overcast (boo, hiss) 🔐 Password Management: 1Password
🧑‍💻 Code Editor: Sublime Text + Zed🗃️ Version Control: Tower
🐚 Terminal: iTerm2
✈️ VPN: Tailscale + Mullvad🔖 Bookmarks: Raindrop.io
📑 Read It Later: Raindrop.io
📨 Mail Client: Mimestream (Gmail only and not very often)
📮 Mail Server: Fastmail (I pay for it but still don’t use it enough) + Gmail
🚀 Launcher: Alfred 5
🖼️ Screenshots: Xnapper
👔 Menu Bar: Ice
🤖 Containers: OrbStack + Docker Compose 🎒 Backups: Backblaze ⚙️ Automation: Hammerspoon

Commentary

I spent most of 2024 Chrome-free, the new cage-free because I was so frustrated at Mozilla that I deleted Firefox from all my machines. I have doubled my Gmail Accounts and usage between non-profits and community projects.

I’m a happy Vivaldi user and advocate. I only had a handful of issues, quickly solved by turning all or some level of trackers back on. The worst offenders were both my bank and my credit card company.

I dropped Bartender and switched to Ice after the company started acting shady due to poor communication. I have no regrets.

My beloved Overcast podcasting app has been complete garbage for more of 2024 than it was working. The author rewrote it, and it became an unusable disaster for months, one part of Marco’s fault and one part of Apple’s fault for making the iOS App Store such a pain to release products into. It still has Airplay issues and crashes on me, but I can once again play more than one podcast in a row without it crashing. I tried many other podcast apps, and I’m sad that this is the state of things.

I have mostly switched from Docker to OrbStack, which I highly recommend for my development life. I keep Docker around for Compose, but I have several legacy projects I haven’t ported yet.

Previously inspired by: “Apps I’ve been using regularly this year.” Heavily inspired by Matt Steinand cataloged by Robb Knight’s App Defaults

Originally posted on: https://micro.webology.dev/2024/12/19/default-apps.html