Safari prefetch? many Little Snitch alerts

Zurarczurx wrote:

It saved my printer because if I hadn't blocked its app from its update server it would have auto-updated and prevented me from using generic cartridges. It's also handy for blocking annoyances like Apple news, Apple weather, Apple maps and all those other things that pop up in Apple apps which Apple seems to think are helpful but annoy the heck out of me.

I don't know anything about your printer, but Apple News, Weather and Maps will only display notifications if you tell them to.

But it's main use for me is to keep an eye on Apps and what they're doing on the web. A quick check of the current rules shows that at some point I've had to block Carbon Copy Cloner from contacting Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager.

The best you can possibly do here is block small companies and honest developers. They are the ones who are going to be running updates from their own, identifiable servers, and using those Google services. All of the global corporations that are actually trafficking in your personal information and web usage are doing it via content delivery networks. Little Snitch is helpless to identify any of those. They mix content data with analytics data. They don't separate it out like you see with Carbon Copy Cloner and similar. And since you're getting these apps for free, they won't work at all if you try to block them. Congratulations on sticking it to "the little guy"! Meanwhile "the man" is buying another yacht.

etresoft wrote:

The best you can possibly do here is block small companies and honest developers.

No, that's all I can do. The best I could do is to block dishonest developers, but there's no way to know if a dev is honest or not so all I can do is block as much as I can. For example, the Etresoft app tries to contact the etresoft.com domain. I've no idea why but I can see no beneficial reason (for me) for my data to be sent there so I use LS to block it.

As for the web tracking stuff - you're absolutely correct that LS can't stop it. That's why I use Brave and FF with script blockers, tracking blockers, and, of course, the tinfoil hat add-on.

Zurarczurx wrote:

No, that's all I can do. The best I could do is to block dishonest developers, but there's no way to know if a dev is honest or not so all I can do is block as much as I can.

You can't. It's only the honest developers that use identifiable websites, analytics, and are open about it. Your options are 1) use only Apple software, 2) block nothing, 3) block honest people.

For example, the Etresoft app tries to contact the etresoft.com domain. I've no idea why but I can see no beneficial reason (for me) for my data to be sent there so I use LS to block it.

So you're saying I wasn't clear enough about that, eh?

Every network request in EtreCheck clearly explains what it's for and asks for your confirmation. It was a different world back then, so I really went over the top on disclosure. Look what good it did me.

As for the web tracking stuff - you're absolutely correct that LS can't stop it. That's why I use Brave and FF with script blockers, tracking blockers, and, of course, the tinfoil hat add-on.

Maybe think about what you're doing with Brave, Firefox, and other apps. Do you just sit there in front of a blank page all day? If not, then you're just fooling yourself.

etresoft wrote: Look what good it did me.

Some of us appreciate it, but those who devote the necessary effort to read, research, and are both interested and capable of comprehending how things work are a dying breed.