[sanswork]

It is exactly like aptitude. The choice of packages could open you up to more vulnerabilities but homebrew itself shouldn't.

It's one of the first things I install whenever I reinstall my OS. That said if you're not doing dev I'm not sure what packages on it you are looking for?

[o_s_m]

Thanks. In Linux I used aptitude quite often to clean old kernel versions and install other verified software, and it felt good to install software from a relatively safe location. So, does this only install things that are in the Mac App Store?

[xxxmadraxxx]

No. Homebrew is pretty much exclusively for installing GUI-less command line 'stuff' in OSX. Things like Nginx, mySQL, RVM, Golang, Bitcoind, etc. etc. Unlikely you'd even need it unless you're doing some kind of development or non-Apple-approved tinkerage.

[sanswork]

No, homebrew has a different repository from the app store.

[o_s_m]

Great. I will play around with it.