The question for me would be whether there’s any app that’s worth the need (real or perceived) to install a $60 helper utility.
I would have to be pretty hard up for a menu bar manager to spend almost $100 between the first app and the second app that makes sure the first app isn’t scamming me.
Buying Little Snitch to block a single app makes no sense of course.
LuLu can do that for free:
That’s correct, I just prefer Little Snitch UI as it’s more polished.
And one can close the circle considering that the same happens with Bartender, the free/opensource alternatives do basically the same with a more rough UI.
it’s not for just one app. You can monitor all of your apps and decide which is allowed to call home or “somewhere else”. Thats how you need to look at it.
On the connection monitor map, some apps look like the WOPR wall screen during the WW3 simulations.
Fair enough - but OP obviously doesn’t have it, and thus seems to be looking to install it primarily for this use case.
Although that brings up an interesting question - how many apps do you find you actually use it to control traffic from?
It’s not just about control, its about your right to know who your apps communicate with. LS also has great ad blocking scripts (yes I know, and I don’t care)
I uninstalled Bartender as I realised a lot of Apple’s sherlocking in ios18 makes a lot of my meubar apps obsolete. So I only have a few menu bar apps and can do without Bartender
I’m a believer in not attributing to sinister motivations what can be explained by incompetence. So I’ve just upgraded my Bartender 4 (which has been running fine under Sonoma and even works under Sequoia Beta) to Bartender 5. I feel much better tossing them $7.50 than some other companies.
I have nothing against ad blocking if that’s your jam. I am curious though as to how many apps there are that it affects on your computer. I’m assuming ad blockers target browsers, are there any other major offenders traffic-wise?
If the new owners are incompetent, that in and of itself seems like a good reason to switch to a different app.
If only more open-source projects were as good at attracting UI designers as they are at recruiting programmers
As far as I can tell they are technically competent. They just have incompetent PR.
Hope this doesn’t go too much off topic, but I’m interested in Little Snitch. I tried it but it was just too much in a way.
Does Little Snitch monitor for outgoing activity that might be dubious automatically or is that just up to me to figure out?
I think it was the last bit that made me uninstall it again.
But I am worried about certain other apps that I have installed.
For example I have been using BOOM for Mac for years and it records the sound constantly on my Mac or at least has access to the microphone
You could follow up in this topic perhaps?
Quick update, Setapp version has been updated to 5.0.54. No sign out any incoming or outgoing connections in Little Snitch for the last 24 hours. I am keeping an eye on it, but it looks like for the time being, there is literally no difference between the two versions in terms of tracking.
Great! Keep us updated
I switched to ICE and haven’t looked back
I’m a long time Bartender user and I’ve loved it.
I’ve just found it to have become so buggy with v5. One of the features I love most is the ability to reduce the gaps between the icons. The default MacOS spacing just seems enormous to me and I’m much happier with my menu bar icons tightly packed in. The need for this is even more acute when one has a Mac with a Notch, as I do.
The ability to reduce the gaps between icons has, as far as I can reasonably ascertain, just stopped working. Or at least it has stopped working in any consistent and predictable way. It’s been driving me mad for at least two months now. That and some other grumbles having developed and I’m afraid I’m done.
I’m sad to say I’ve left the Bartender family and using alternative software for my gap-reducing needs.
Ice has turned out to be an excellent replacement for Bartender for managing Mac menu bar icons. Adjusting spacing is on the Ice roadmap, but in the meantime I was able to do it from the terminal thanks to a tip at the end of this post by Niléane at MacStories.