I am currently on a company trip with my brand new MacBook and here are the things I always install first to get started:

• Homebrew - makes installing of low level stuff a breeze (free)
• Node/NPM - many things rely on it (free)
• Dropbox - still be best way to store and share content amongst machines, both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive drive me nuts with their file permission nonsense (paid)
• VLC - plays everything, has excellent keyboard shortcuts and can in a pinch even record screens for you (free)
• VS Code - coders gotta edit (free)
• GitHub Desktop - much, much easier than installing and setting up Git yourself (free)
• ImageOptim - file resizing and optimising images, even on the command line (free)
• FFMPEG - converts anything to anything on the command line (free)
• Handbrake - batch conversion of videos made easy (free)
• Screenflow - my go-to screen recording and video editing tool (paid)

Other essentials are a VPN (I use Mullvad and ProtonVPN), but that's about it.

Photo by iMattSmart on Unsplash