I always come back to Safari.
I’d install apps based on your needs. If you install other people’s must-have apps, you’re not going to have such a clean install anymore.
Ublock-origin with Firefox, Audacity, Batch Photo Resizer, calibre, cardflow, Diffraction, Ejimo and Ultra Character Map (try finding emojis without them), Libre Office, Paprika Recipe Manager, Samurai Safe, SeaMonkey (who else edits HTML?) GIMP, Darktable, RawTherapee, Super Photo Upscaler, Sublime Text, VLC, Clearview (and why isn't epub supported natively?), PhotoSync (share photos with all platforms), GhostText for editing browser text areas with Sublime Text or other. (life-saver)
Ones I actually use.
pretty good. Which browser do you use?
Safari for most things, Chromium if I have to for something.
I didn't toss those there because those (and IDEs and SSH/Terminal clients) are very opinionated and everyone has their favorites.
Raycast (also does window management, dictation), Chrome, Ghostty, Karabiner..
Handy, Cotypist, Markedit, Ghostty Tip, BetterTouchTool, GoodLinks, Pixelmator Pro, Handbrake, Zed, Onyx, LittleSnitch (or LuLu), Chezmoi, Stats, Shottr, llama.cpp, oMLX, LM Studio, Parcel, Things, OrbStack, Msty Studio.
Magnet app (for window splitting) is usually one of my first installs. I think I paid like $7 for it years ago and it's well worth it.
Malwarebytes, Microsoft Office. That's the software I'll install when I buy a new device.
Hammerspoon,
Little snitch,
iTerm2,
Chezmoi,
Orion