Network and communication
Apps for browsing the web, managing network privacy, downloading files, reading feeds, and messaging on macOS.
Browsers
Section titled “Browsers”- Zen — Firefox-based browser with a focus-oriented, tab-grouping interface
- Brave — Chromium-based browser with built-in ad blocking and privacy features
- Firefox — open-source browser by Mozilla with strong privacy defaults and extension support
Ad blockers
Section titled “Ad blockers”- Wipr — content blocker for Safari using the native Safari Extensions API
Download managers
Section titled “Download managers”-
AB Download Manager — free and open-source (Apache-2.0) desktop download manager written in Kotlin with Compose Multiplatform; a free IDM alternative that splits a file into segments and pulls them over several connections at once when the server supports range requests, plus download queues and schedulers, dark/light/black themes, and official Firefox and Chrome extensions that hand downloads over from the browser; builds for macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon), Windows, Linux and Android. Install on macOS from the author’s own tap — it is not in homebrew-cask core:
Terminal window brew tap amir1376/tap && brew install --cask ab-download-manager
- Viscosity — OpenVPN client for Mac and Windows with a status bar interface
- Shimo — multi-protocol VPN client supporting OpenVPN, Cisco, and others
- WireGuard — modern, fast VPN protocol with a minimal codebase; native macOS app available
RSS readers
Section titled “RSS readers”- Reeder — RSS and read-later client with iCloud sync and a clean reading experience
- Cappuccino — news inbox that summarizes articles using AI
- NetNewsWire — free and open-source RSS reader for Mac and iOS with iCloud and Feedbin sync
Messaging
Section titled “Messaging”- Beeper — unified messaging client that connects multiple chat networks in one inbox