Software Pick: Little Snitch
Now that Apple has smoothed out some of the issues with its firewall, I’d like to mention a good companion application. Your average firewall is good at controlling what enters into your network. But a lot of them do very little when it comes to managing the outgoing traffic. This is where Little Snitch comes into play.
Little Snitch is not a replacement for your firewall. It specializes in monitoring your outgoing network traffic. If an evil application tries to establish a network connection without your permission, Little Snitch will warn you and give you the option to allow or deny the connection. The application will remember your previous preferences and you can also setup rules (see the picture above) so it won’t continuously pester you with repeated warnings.
It also has a new network monitor that can give you detailed information regarding your incoming and outgoing traffic. I found the menu bar icon for this feature annoying so I turned it off.
It wasn’t until Danny Choo mentioned this program that I finally got around to installing it. From what I can tell, the program doesn’t slow down my system and I haven’t noticed any weird behavior. Overall, I’m happy to add this to my software library.
Version 2 was recently released and offers Leopard compatibility.
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