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'Lockdown' Firewall App That Lets You Block Ads and Trackers in All Apps Expands to Mac

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Lockdown, a popular open source firewall app that's designed to let users block any connection to any domain, is now available for Macs in addition to iOS devices.

Launched on the iPhone back in July, Lockdown blocks ad tracking services, analytics platforms that monitor device usage, ads, and more across all apps that you use (rather than just Safari like most ad blockers). Lockdown on iOS has blocked more than a billion trackers for Lockdown users, according to developer Rahul Dewan.

lockdown.jpg

Lockdown for Mac is designed to be as simple and as customizable as the iOS version of the app. The app comes with a pre-installed list of recommended domains to block to prevent tracking, such as Facebook tracking and analytics tracking options from companies like Google and Mixpanel, but custom lists can be added as well.

lockdown2.jpg

The app is free to use, and since it operates on device, there is no user data collection. Lockdown is designed by the developers behind Duet Display, and it is monetized through an optional Secure Tunnel VPN service.

Lockdown can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Article Link: 'Lockdown' Firewall App That Lets You Block Ads and Trackers in All Apps Expands to Mac
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/02/14/lockdown-firewall-app-expands-to-mac/
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Why do I feel like this app and Dell Mobile Connect (which allows your Windows PC to receive notifications, calls and messages from your iPhone and iPad) are the next apps to be blocked by Apple?
 
Tried to download it, but it "requires" Catalina...
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Marx55 said:
How does Lockdown compare to Little Snitch on Mac?
Click to expand...

Little Snitch only blocks/allows/monitors network traffic and connections. This blocks ad tracking that is used to target you with advertisements and analytics that are sold to marketing firms.
 
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trigf said:
Tried to download it, but it "requires" Catalina...
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Little Snitch only blocks/allows/monitors network traffic and connections. This blocks ad tracking that is used to target you with advertisements and analytics that are sold to marketing firms.
Click to expand...

This app is definitly not needed if you have Little Snitch. This morning I just created my own Little Snitch rule blocking the 555 domains that Locknote is blocking (you can find the list on their github). But if you are looking for very good list for Little Snitch (with much much more domains blocked than Locknote), take a look at


or

 
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trigf said:
Little Snitch only blocks/allows/monitors network traffic and connections. This blocks ad tracking that is used to target you with advertisements and analytics that are sold to marketing firms.
Click to expand...
Thanks, do you know what makes this differen from 1blocker? Sound like it does the same
 
iRutherford said:
Why do I feel like this app and Dell Mobile Connect (which allows your Windows PC to receive notifications, calls and messages from your iPhone and iPad) are the next apps to be blocked by Apple?
Click to expand...
I don't know why you think that. The mac isn't the iPhone. If they remove on App Store, it gets hosted elsewhere and can be downloaded then....
 
squirrellydw said:
Anyone use this? Is it any good
Click to expand...
It seems to do a nice job. I turned on the Firewall and auto VPN, I did not create an account (yet) for Secure Tunnel VPN but I went to one of my favorite sites cbssports.com and I'm usually greeted with all kinds of ads and videos playing. With Lockdown, not a single Ad popped up or video started playing. MacRumors is another site which has a lot of Ads and not a single Ad showed up.

So far so good.
 
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I hadn’t heard of the iOS app, so this is a good reminder, thanks!

It looks interesting. I always wanted a system-wide ad/tracking blocker, but didn’t want to endure the slowdown of online VPNs. This seems to solve that issue on iOS. I don’t understand the benefit of the paid version compared to the free tier however.
 
iRutherford said:
Why do I feel like this app and Dell Mobile Connect (which allows your Windows PC to receive notifications, calls and messages from your iPhone and iPad) are the next apps to be blocked by Apple?
Click to expand...
Thank you for sharing info about Mobile Connect! Downloading it ASAP before it gets blocked ;)
 
Why not just use a PiHole or a service like nextdns.io it covers every device with way more flexibility?
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Marx55 said:
How does Lockdown compare to Little Snitch on Mac?
Click to expand...
This isnt a firewall it modifies DNS requests to block trackers and ads.
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Pafoofnik said:
Yep. I'm told that it'll run on my MacBook Pro (yippee!) but it requires MacOS 10.15 and a 64-bit processor. I guess my MacOS 10.14.6 and a 64-bit processor doesn't make the grade. (boo!)
Click to expand...
Look into www.nextdns.io or the pihole project they accomplish the same thing but over your entire network.
 
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iRutherford said:
Why do I feel like this app and Dell Mobile Connect (which allows your Windows PC to receive notifications, calls and messages from your iPhone and iPad) are the next apps to be blocked by Apple?
Click to expand...
Not sure. This seems like the kind of thing that Apple would support.
 
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For some reason the iOS app stopped showing the VPN connection in the status bar a few updates ago and also it takes too long to switch between WiFi and no WiFi like it would show me still on WiFi for more than a minute after I disabled WiFi
 
itsmilo said:
For some reason the iOS app stopped showing the VPN connection in the status bar a few updates ago and also it takes too long to switch between WiFi and no WiFi like it would show me still on WiFi for more than a minute after I disabled WiFi
Click to expand...

Have you tried deleting the VPN profile and readding it? That doesn’t fix the slow WiFi/cellular switch for me tho.
 
PiHole or dnscrypt-proxy for your whole network, or the Brave browser for browsing - all open source. As already mentioned, this is *not* a firewall, it's a dns filter, and I don't know why anyone would want to supersede an internal OS firewall anyway.
 
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Lockdown for iOS is great when it’s working. Problem is, it’ll stop functioning randomly but appear to still be blocking URLs as intended. I’d hoped they’d address this before launching other projects.

For the Mac I’m wary of installing Lockdown. I used to use Duet display, made by the same developers according to the article, and enjoyed it. Until one day the Genius Bar traced kernel panics I had been having back to Duet as the source and told me to get rid of it. As soon as I did the problems went away.
 
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Saturnine said:
The positioning of that on/off button within the outer circle is going to keep me awake tonight. 🤦‍♂️
Click to expand...
Do you want center to be based on the frame of the on/off group or based on the frame of the circle shape within the on/off group? Currently it is actually centered mathematically correct but not correct for UX.

which do you prefer? lol
 
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