Bringing home use Macbook Pro. Need Day One advice.?

Apple is a "religion". No religion is "one size fits all". You either get it, or you do not.

Ultimately I think you can buy an updated license (install disc) at an Apple store. The Apple end user agreement applies to one user. The license the came with the computer belongs to your employer. You must buy a new license (install disc).

Linux, and mac benefit little from defragmenting the hard drive. The filesystems are not subject to the fragmentation problems that plague Windwos.

As a rule mac is immune to adware unless you download and install questionable software.

If you frequent flaky web sites or goto sites the set up a VM and run Linux in a VM to do said surfing.

Drive slim is a good utility.

Applecare is a paid service. It is free for the first year of a new purchase. They cannot help much with bugs in the OS, and that is the biggest problem you will face with mac.

There is no real need to create a separate non-admin account. The only thing you will accomplish is the OS will create a second profile that hogs a lot of space.

The problems you will face are:

"Update purgatory" - This is when apps, from the app store, or those built in, get "stuck" and re-download the same update over and over daily.

"Spotlight lags" - This is when Spotlight Search hogs all your resources.

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OS-X releases major updates several times a year. The updates will "break" your apps. You have to get updates, or buy the latest version.

If the macbook was made before about 2008 it is subject to camera hacks. Personally I think web cams are a stupid idea. I paint over the lens with matching paint or fingernail polish even though my mac is a 2015 model.

If you have an iPhone and your mac is using the same Apple account, you mac will ring when your phone rings.

Unless you disable iMessage, all your text messages will be replicated on your mac. I hate that so I uninstalled Messaging.

OS-X has a lot of other annoying problems that you will lean to "work around". Keep that in mind.

The only real advantages to mac are:

You can open a lot of apps, and witch between them, without them crashing, or slowing your computer noticeably. Most Windows users are hard pressed to make it though a day without at least one app hanging.

You are pretty safe from malware.

Just a funny observation. I am in China right now, for work. I can get access to a lot of Windows machines that are nearby.