No, it’s not difficult to determine this. I keep it simple and don’t care about intent/maliciousness of the app. If an app doesn’t require internet to func, “deny”. That’s it. For e.g., if Bartender is connecting to the internet in good intent, I don’t care, it’s a menu bar app, “blocked”!
List down the apps here and we can help. here are a few examples:
e.g.,
- browser = yes, allow all (but your 1blocker will filter ads on the page, plus LS blocklists)
- keyboard maestro = No, it’s a productivity app (unless you have a workflow which is fetching something from let’s say weather API, then I will only allow that domain. This applies to all apps)
- hazel = no
- bartender=no
- Alfred=no
- MS Office=strict NO lol
- Adobe=strict No
- All apple apps = yes
- Cardhop=No
- Some dictionary=No
- some image/file/video converter=no
- RSS app=Yes, allow all
- Spotify=allow only spotify.com domain. Rest everything is tracking/stats of the user activity
- Terminal/iTerm=Yes
- Whatapp=yes, only for whatsap domain
Get the idea? It’s not that difficult, you will encounter this every time you open the app for the first time after installing LS, be patient. Long term, it will be in passive mode, running in the background requiring no maintenance on day-day basis.
Long term it’s so much peace of mind to install ANY app and try it out, without worrying about “privacy”.
PS: I update all the important apps once every 6 months/year manually by downloading the dmg, that too if there are many major feature/bug fixes. Have RSS running on all these apps changelog lol. This is only for important ones, rest everything i don’t care. e.g., Quitter or Hazeover.