Homebrew is a package manager for macOS that allows you to easily install third-party software and keep it up-to-date. If you have ever used Ubuntu, then Homebrew is much like aptitude (apt).
To install Homebrew, open the Terminal and copy & paste the following command:
$ /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
Homebrew installs all executable programmes in /usr/local/bin
and this path is not in the default executable path of macOS. To add the path for your user, you can edit the file ~/.profile
and add the line
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
This will add /usr/local/bin
to your user’s PATH
variable. You may also consider to add that path to the default environment.
To maintain Homebrew (update the list of available programmes and their versions and update the installed programmes) you may want to place this script under /usr/local/bin
. Once the script is place there, you can call it from the Terminal to maintain Homebrew at any time.
Turn off analytics
To turn off analytics (sending anonymous data) type the following command in your Terminal:
$ brew analytics off