I've used Little Snitch a few times and have ended up just "always allowing" things because there's just so many network connections things say they need.
I started using it again a few months ago, and this time I banned myself from "allow all" except for things that I trust/reallly need... It's painful, but also just incredible how many superfluous and obviously-metric-gathering-disguised-as-a-feature apps do. They are relentless.
Apple itself is the worst, with Google being a close second (google update is VERY serious about keeping your shit up to date by checking every 30 minutes... don't want to miss out on something!). I'd love to see some real-time visualization they must be doing with the constant geo/metric data they are collecting: it would be fascinating!
But I'm not getting paid to provide them with that data, so thanks lil' snitch!
May I provide a view from someone who is aggregating app-specific data from thousands of users a day?
I create software that people enjoy using. Unfortunately, the market isn't very big. Fortunately, they use it every day.
For my existing users to continue getting updates/upgrades, I need to be able to afford to spend time on the product. I cannot spend enough time on the product if it does not make enough revenue. This means (among other things) making sure I lose as few people as possible through the funnel. This is the only reason I aggregate the data: for example, if I can see that 95% of users who complete task X go on to purchase, then I can try to ensure that more users complete task X without it being.
This provides more funding, updates and upgrades. It allows me to keep prices reasonably low (so you are, in fact, getting paid for it).
You may say: instead of charging $40, charge $80 and don't track me!
The commensurate amount of features needed to double pricing, or whatever the case may be, may not be supported by the market. After some point, there are diminishing returns: software does get "done" eventually and only a radical re-imagining can reinvigorate the customer base. But quite often, you will lose a substantial portion of the customer base because they like the old way of doing things.
This is primarily why I allow tracking by websites I use on a daily basis.
Or you might say: Just pick something that makes more money!
I'm currently working on a business model that does this as a business model. Who knows if it'll work :)
Yeah, Little Snitch shows just how much telemetry Apple macOS collects by itself. It's a bit annoying how noone ever touches on that - people keep Microsoft to significantly higher standard :(
>I've used Little Snitch a few times and have ended up just "always allowing" things because there's just so many network connections things say they need.
If you mean "always allowing" all connections from specific software (Chrome, Apple updaters, you torrent client, Adobe updaters, etc.) then yes. That's how it's supposed to be used, obviously you wont enable them on a endpoint by endpoint basis.
This leaves ALL the other software, which you don't trust, and you get to know immediately of any of its accesses to the network.
I started using it again a few months ago, and this time I banned myself from "allow all" except for things that I trust/reallly need... It's painful, but also just incredible how many superfluous and obviously-metric-gathering-disguised-as-a-feature apps do. They are relentless.
Apple itself is the worst, with Google being a close second (google update is VERY serious about keeping your shit up to date by checking every 30 minutes... don't want to miss out on something!). I'd love to see some real-time visualization they must be doing with the constant geo/metric data they are collecting: it would be fascinating!
But I'm not getting paid to provide them with that data, so thanks lil' snitch!