As a fan of the open source philosophy, I try to use free and open source projects whenever possible. Here is a list of the programs I recommend using, based on category of software.
Artix Linux is, in my opinion, the ideal Linux distro. It's based on Arch Linux, meaning it's customizeable, fast, lightweight, and not overly-complicated. What separates it from Arch is that it doesn't use systemd, which although incredibly convenient and easy to use is considered slow and old by some.
Arch Linux is about as good as it gets for a Linux distro. It's considered a classic among Linux users since it's been around forever and has served as the base for many other Linux distros (including Manjaro, Artix, EndeavourOS, etc). It's customizeable, fast, lightweight, and not overly-complicated.
Pop!_OS is a beginner Linux distro based in Ubuntu, without the spyware. It brings all the advantages of using Linux while being, in my opinion, easier to use than MacOS or Windows.
Firefox is a free, fully open-source browser that has tons of useful features without feeling bloated or restrictive, allowing users to customize most aspects of their browsing experience.
Brave is a free, semi-open-source internet browser based in Chromium. It is customizeable, user-friendly, and comes with a ton of useful features.
zsh is super fast, its autocomplete is faster than Bash's and functions like a drop-down menu, plus it's super customizeable.
Bash is the most widely used shell in Linux and comes installed by default on many UNIX systems. It gets the job done, however with alternatives available, it isn't necessarily my first choice.
Neovim is free, open-source, and an improved version of the already amazing text editor Vim. It has more features, less bloat, and is more customizeable.
Vim is free, open-source, and an improved version of Vi. Vim is slightly more bloated than Neovim and has less features, however its one advantage is that Lua can be used for configuration.