Little Snitch
Little Snitch is a macOS firewall that monitors outgoing and incoming connections, alerting you to any unexpected activity. It lets you choose to allow or deny connections for improved security and privacy.
network
connections
firewall
privacy
security
Little Snitch: macOS Firewall with Connection Monitoring
Little Snitch monitors outgoing and incoming connections, alerting you to unexpected activity, allowing for secure and private browsing on your macOS device.
What is Little Snitch?
Little Snitch is a popular macOS firewall developed by Objective Development Software GmbH. It monitors all incoming and outgoing connections on your Mac, keeping track of what apps are connecting to the internet and what servers they are connecting to.
When a new connection is attempted, Little Snitch alerts you and lets you choose to allow or deny that connection. This gives you great visibility into what's happening on your network and helps protect your privacy and security.
Some key features of Little Snitch:
- Monitors Internet traffic from all applications and kernel extensions
- Gives you visual network activity alerts to easily detect suspicious connections
- Lets you set fine-grained rules to control Internet access on a per-application or global basis
- Offers a network map to see all established connections at a glance
- Integrates with macOS to restrict application Internet access without impairing their functionality
Little Snitch offers both a robust firewall to monitor network traffic as well as an approachable interface to easily understand and control Internet connections on a Mac. Its visual alerts and network activity map make it easy to stay informed on what apps are accessing the Internet while its flexibility with connection rules lets you tune network access as needed.
Little Snitch Features
Features
- Network monitor that shows all incoming and outgoing connections
- Customizable rules to allow, deny or prompt connections
- Alerts for unexpected connections or connection attempts
- Monitors apps even when they are not actively being used
- Map view shows geographic location of servers connections are made to
- Dark mode support
- Silent mode to run in background without alerts
- Statistics and connection history
Pricing
- Subscription-Based
Pros
Granular control over network connections
Improves privacy and security
Easy to use interface
Provides visibility into app connections
Lightweight and low system resource usage
Cons
Can be complicated for novice users
Requires manually creating rules
Must grant full disk access permission
Lacks some features of traditional firewalls
No Windows version available
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