Editor’s note: this is a snapshot of life in 2013-08-04. My setup has changed substantially since then.

In case I ever have to get a new computer (or, indeed, in case anyone else is interested), I hereby present the (updating) list of applications and so forth that I would immediately install to get a computer up to usability.

• Browser: Firefox with Ghostery, HTTPS Everywhere, and NoScript (and remember to turn on Do Not Track…)
• Mail client: Thunderbird with Enigmail
• Messaging client: Adium on Mac, and possibly Pidgin for others - I’ve never used a non-Mac chat client. Beware: as of this writing, Pidgin stores passwords in plain text, so don’t save passwords in Pidgin.
• Encryption: GPG (Windows, Mac, Linux)
• Text editor: Vim
• Memory training: Anki
• Movie viewing: VLC
• Screen colour muter: f.lux
• Backup software: CrashPlan - but I also keep local backups using whatever built-in automated backup utility the OS provides
• FTP client: FileZilla, or Cyberduck on a Mac
• Syncing: Dropbox (but I want to get rid of this, because of privacy concerns)
• Computational software: Mathematica
• Music: iTunes (but I want to switch this for something not-Apple, and it has no Linux version)
• Gaming: Steam
• RSS reader: Currently, my RSS feed is presented in-browser, at NewsBlur.