iLoveMacApps.com

One of the best applications on the Mac today is Little Snitch, it is an app design to snitch on your network connections. It is really useful for seeing what programs are connecting to other computers. As a result you can see what apps are using your network, which IP address and URL they are connecting to and the amount of data they are sending.

Snitching On What Is Being Sent

This application is built up of a couple of different windows. There is no one application that runs everything, it is split into about three different windows. For example there is the rules window, the active display window, the window which shows you blocked network connections and a couple of preferences windows. All are used for blocking and allowing network connections.

The whole idea behind Little Snitch is to block apps from sending data to servers. This is really useful, since you can control what sort of information is being sent. For example if you have a program that seems to be using the network a lot you can see what it is doing. It stops apps from sending confidential data. It can even go so far as to stop attacks from programs.

Most rules are set up automatically. The first time you switch it on you will spend a little bit of time allowing or disallowing applications. You can block or allow programs, once or all time. When the snitch window comes up it shows you extra information such as the URL being accessed. A very cool little app.

Conclusion

I really like this app. It gives me a bit more control over my network that I would not normally have. Its also very good for setting up rules and making sure apps only talking to whom they are supposed to. The only problem with this application is that it does get a little naggy. Since it does pick up every network attempt, thankfully it does learn pretty quickly.

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