AstonJ

AstonJ

Do you use LittleSnitch?

I think I’ve used LittleSnitch since my first ever Mac - does anyone else with a Mac use it?

For those not aware of it, whenever an app tries to access the internet it asks you whether you’d like to grant it permission - which can be allow or deny, and either for forever, until quit, just once, or for a specified time.

Handy for all sorts of things, such the Google Chrome updater - which seems to ping for new versions every 5 seconds! You can just deny forever, then when you want to upgrade, simply delete the associated rule and it will ask you for permission next time it tries to connect to the internet.

I love it because I hate the idea of apps connecting to the internet without my knowledge!

Do you use LittleSnitch?

  • Yes
  • No
  • Considering it now!

0 voters

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dimitarvp

dimitarvp

Never did but would like to.

Also TripMode – to limit which apps can even use the net – is something I am looking forward to use actively.

Dusty

Dusty

I burned out on Little Snitch. I lasted about 5 years, but I find the constant breakage and allowlisting to be really fatiguing when I just want to work.

For the security conscious, there is also Google Santa, but again, there is a lot of configuration to use it. I lost a year of my life to Arch Linux back in the day. No one saw me - I don’t really remember what happened - I just remember a lot of blinking when I first saw the sun again… I think about 6 months of that time was spent trying to center my desktop wallpaper image. Which is my way of saying that, if you went with macOS because you just want things to work without tinkering, these additional layers of security can really rob you of that feeling. What’s challenging for me as a non-security-professional is really quantifying risk. If you have no idea how vulnerable you are, it’s difficult to decide how much effort one should expend in this arena.

AstonJ

AstonJ

LittleSnitch is a lot easier now - it comes with recommended rules and even suggests how to act. After about a week of normal use, I don’t think I have had to configure anything other than new software now :smiley:

I do like Apple’s latest security measures tho, such as having to give access to apps if they want to access things like your documents folders.

Thanks for the link to Santa, I wasn’t aware that it existed!

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