In addition to Little Snitch, these tools include components of ZoneAlarm, Norton Internet Security, and NetBarrier. My full and complete loathing of these tools comes from the fact that they are marketed to everyone despite the fact that they're really only valuable to a small subset of the computing world. Moreover, they're quite dangerous to everyone else. In a nutshell, an "outbound firewall" monitors all the traffic and requests leaving your computer, allowing you to ensure that nothing malicious is happening and that no sensitive data is being sent without your approval. On the surface this sounds like a very good thing. The marketing departments at these various companies know this and capitalize on it with phrases like, "keeps your online identity safe," "protect your privacy," and "extreme security." These all sound like things I want to do, and likely so do you. The problem with these apps comes in the implementation. None of these programs truly knows what YOU define as private, sensitive, or safe. To be fair, they all in some way try to be a little intelligent about it, but they have to err on the side of caution. After all, if the application developer decides that revealing your data to Apple's servers is OK but you do not, then the application fails. So these apps have to be written to be over-protective, by default, and that's the problem. Most casual users will buy into the marketing message, install one of these apps, and then be treated to an onslaught of notifications. For testing purposes, I installed Little Snitch this morning after which I had to reboot. When my machine came back up I was presented with twenty-two (yes, 22!) individual confirmation dialogs, most of which were quite cryptic. After about 4 of these I was ready to call it quits but I hung in there just for you. After 15, my mousing hand and fingers were trained to click "Any Connection" and "Forever" just to get the things out of my way. Instead of me training Little Snitch, it was training me. That's right, before I even launched my first app I learned how to get Little Snitch out of my way quickly so I could get to work. The Gear's Up, and Your Coffee Is Getting Cold Mac little snitch how to# In his retort, John Martellaro likened Little Snitch's alerts to the "gear still up" warning light in an aircraft.
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