Many applications nowadays periodically “phone home” or check in with their creators’ servers to exchange information. What if there’s already something installed on your computer that’s trying to make a questionable connection to the internet? That qualifies as an outgoing connection, which is where Little Snitch comes in.įrom Objective Development Software GmbH, Little Snitch is a $29.95 application that gives Mac users (running 10.4 or later) more control over the internet traffic originating from their computer. The problem, even though it works well, is that it can only block incoming connections to your computer. Tiger’s firewall is located in System Preferences > Sharing, while Leopard’s firewall can be found at System Preferences > Security. That’s why turning on Mac OS X’s integrated firewall is a good idea.

Little Snitch is a $29.95 third-party firewall that covers everything the built-in one does not.Īlthough Macs are inherently more secure than Windows PCs, that does not mean they are invincible.

While it is effective, it does not manage all connections to and from a Mac. Mac OS X features its own firewall, which resides in System Preferences.

Snitch software