Default Apps 2026

📝 Notes: Obsidian

I’ve tried this multiple times over the years but tyring it again! I have a vault for personal stuff as well as a family vault I share with my wife. Our family vault is synced with syncthing and it’s even working well so far on iOS with Mobius Sync. The shared vault has been a helpful place lately to keep notes of recent HVAC issues.

☑️ ToDos: Todoist

I’ve used Todoist for years but honestly I’m not happy with my setup. I haven’t figured out the right way for me to keep track of everything to do without loosing sight of what to do next.

🔒 Passwords: Bitwarden

I started off self hosting with vaultwarden that worked great for a couple years. I needed to upgrade the device that it was running on and I realized if something went wrong I wasn’t overly confident on being able to restore a recent backup and do it quickly. I’m OK with that for silly projects but didn’t want to take that risk for passwords.

🔎 Launcher: Raycast Really helpful to have some extra functionality without need to open or switch to another app. It also makes it really quick to search documentation. Instead of switching to firefox going to Laravel docs I can install the Laravel docs extension and quickly search for the specific doc page I’m looking for.

🚫 Ad Blcoker: Pi-Hole

This is by far my favorite and most used app. It feels kinda like cheating putting this in as it’s not something I install directly on my computer, but it’s by far my most used and appricated software. I have it running on a raspberry pi to block ads on my computer as well as my phone and other devices. I setup PiVPN and an iOS shortcut to automatically connect when leaving my house.

👨‍💻 Terminal: iTem2 I’m sure I’m not using this to it’s full potentional and may be able to get by with mac’s default terminal, but I’m happy with my setup using oh my zsh.

🌐 Browser: Firefox

My go to browser on every device. Multi-account containers makes it easy when testing accounts on a web project or trying to isolate trackers from social / shopping sites.

I’ve started using safari a little bit just because of how well passwords and login keys sync with desktop. But other than installing webapps on the iPhone firefox is still my go to, just wish it wasn’t handcuffed by Apple.

👨‍💻📝 Editor: VS Code

Been using VS Code for years now. Haven’t had any major complaints to think of switching to something else