Little Snitch 6

Monitor and control networking

- HOWARD OAKLEY

$59 From https://obdev.at/index.html.

Needs macOS 14 or later

NOT MUCH RUNS on your Mac without at least one internet connection, although it's still just possible to run macOS without a network. In this hidden world of connections, there's ample scope for bad behavior, apps compromising your privacy by sending your data to their servers, as well as the truly malicious wanting to cause you pain and grief.

Little Snitch opens a window on that world, providing insight into what's making all those connections, and giving you the choice to block what you don't trust using its powerful software firewall.

Version 6 takes full advantage of changes in Sonoma that make its installation quick and simple despite its two system extensions; if you're still using macOS 11-13, then its license covers the previous version, although you'll then miss out on the many enhancements in this new release.

Its firewall works according to the rules you set to allow or block connections between your Mac and both local and remote systems. Rules can be general enough to apply to all processes, or specific to a single process, destination and protocol. It even supports time-limited rules that only apply for a fixed period. These can be assembled into groups to aid their organization and control, and assigned priorities. Little Snitch provides additional management aids, including valuable analyses of those that are redundant or unused.

How to use blocklists in Little Snitch's rules