Huh… well, if I’m interpreting your situation well, this might be your lucky day! There’s a whole universe of software that isn’t in the Apple App Store. The thing is, releasing software in the Apple App Store costs developers $100 a year. And some people, on principle, don’t want to be tied to the Apple App Store.

So what’s the alternative? It can be daunting, because the App Store seems to guarantee safety and quality, right?

But there is an alternative that is used by millions: package managers. This type of software will fetch software for you, install it taking into account your computer’s hardware and software, and keep it updated (like an app store). Even better than that, there are some package managers that stand by the same values and use the same software-building process as Lemmy: they’re open source. This makes them community-oriented, and —by many accounts— safer.

The most popular open source package manager for MacOS is Homebrew. Once you install it, you can run brew install --cask thunderbird to install Thunderbird. Then, whenever you want to update it (along with all of the software that you install through Homebrew), you can simply run brew upgrade.

This is how package managers work: they help you manage software. And they have made me excited about managing my software, as well as relieved from how simple it all is once you understand them.