????

I skimmed it but moved on

it was H post....and I'm so ashamed I even brought it up here.....sorry. Thanks for your help. Not going to use any of them.

Maybe you might find some or all of them useful, but you don't "need to" download them. They're free, so if you feel like trying them yourself, what the hell, right? One did look kind of interesting (the one for if your Mac gets boosted - my iPad was stolen briefly in April, so that one got my attention ); others may look useful/fun to you but they're not necessary to make your machine work

One not mentioned that I love (and it's free, too): Audacity. I mostly edit/convert music files with it, but it can do more.

Love it for audio, but I haven't explored its other features. Thanks for the tip -- I'll check out the tutorials and see what else is under the hood.

Most of the suggestions were kind of pointless.

If you like Chrome or another browser more than Safari, then of course you should install it. Otherwise, why?

Don't worry. I think you'll be okay without them unless some of the other browsers and apps stop being available.

Chrome has the same web engine as Safari but different design goals. If you've only ever used Safari, you should at least try either Firefox or Chrome for comparison.

App Fresh would be fine if it were freeware. At $10 it's questionable.

Onyx is great for savvy power users. Less technical folks should use "Maintenance" from the same programmer instead. http://www.titanium.free.fr/download.php

Avast is an antivirus similar to many others. It has the advantage of being free.

By definition it is no way spyware.
If Chrome is spyware then each and every piece of software ever written is spyware!