LuLu (Little Snitch, Hands Off alternative)

[cman-uk]

Anyone using this? I've been a Little Snitch user to date.

Whilst you cannot have multiple rules per app, like in Little Snitch or Hands Off) it seems fully functional.

Best of all, it's free, open source and lite in terms of system footprint.

https://objective-see.com/products/lulu.html

"LuLu is the free, shared-source firewall for macOS. It's goal is simple; block any unknown outgoing connections, until approved by the user. While it was designed to generically detect malware by flagging unauthorized networking connections, LuLu can also be used to block OS components or 3rd-party applications from transmitting information to remote servers. "

Anyone else use it, or see any reason why not to use it?

 

[J.Gallardo]

It seems legit, as code is public & known... I'm not tech-savvy, but I think it's an interesting app. Thank you.
I'm using "Radio Silence" (https://radiosilenceapp.com) for the same purpose; it's cheaper and simpler than LittleSnitch. I didn't find a free app for such an easy task when I needed one. I would had installed LuLu instead...!

 

[chscag]

Thanks for the URL. I used "Little Snitch" for awhile but got tired of the nags and removed it.

 

[cman-uk]

Thanks for the URL. I used "Little Snitch" for awhile but got tired of the nags and removed it.

I only started using it today.
It seems very simple compared to Little Snitch, however, seems to do a very similar job - - without some of the 'advanced' features.

2 things I miss already :

- is the network monitor in the menu bar. With Little Snitch, you'd have a green bar for downstream and red bar for upstream , each with the data transfer speed as well. This would immediately give you a good idea of network activity with a simple glance. I think Hands Off has this feature albeit without the numerical/speed.

- the ability to see what has attempted to communicate and been blocked; a log. Not seen that with LuLu, yet.

Other than that, so far so good.

 

[cman-uk]

It appears LuLu at some point closed itself, I only noticed from seeing the icon missing on the menu bar. Not ideal.

(the Mac had not been restarted, but yes LuLu is added to the login items)

Anyone experienced the same?

 

[Eligos]

Using LuLu, works perfectly, no hangs or quits on my setup.

 

[Isamilis]

I experienced the same, but if you check activity monitor, actually Lulu is still running in the background. Only the icon is missing from menu bar.

It appears LuLu at some point closed itself, I only noticed from seeing the icon missing on the menu bar. Not ideal.

(the Mac had not been restarted, but yes LuLu is added to the login items)

Anyone experienced the same?

 

[cman-uk]

I experienced the same, but if you check activity monitor, actually Lulu is still running in the background. Only the icon is missing from menu bar.

nice catch, thank you. it hasn't died since, but will keep an eye on it.

its certainly less intrusive than Little Snitch which warned about connectivity quite often - which was nice to see as its proof that its running and doing it's job.

LuLu hardly warns about anything, ever. If I remember, I'll launch an application from time to time to test LuLu will catch it ...shouldn't have to but...

 

[xgman]

LS is apparently the most stable of these from what I can gather.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Just found out about Objective See yesterday. Didn't even know who Patrick Wardle was before yesterday.

Having been a Windows IT admin for long ... long time, I usually just use Eset on my Windows PCs. Never really did anything other than a random Malwarebytes scan now and then on my Mac. I don't visit sites that lead to infection on my Mac so I only run AdGuard Pro (app) to deal with the ads.

Installed LuLu and Oversight. I don't feel the need to install an AV on my Mac at the moment, however I have started using my Mac for work - connecting it up to a network full of Windows machines.

Pretty cool application!

 

[nickbelane]

Thank you for the URL. I was currently testing Little Snitch but I switched now to LuLu. Let's see how it goes, it looks great so far and intuitive.

 

[iAmRenzo]

I know this is an old topic, but what the heck.
I use Little Snitch now and I love it that you can give the same app access to their own site but block analytics.
LuLu and Radio Silence look like they block the entire app. Can someone confirm this?

 

[cman-uk]

I know this is an old topic, but what the heck.
I use Little Snitch now and I love it that you can give the same app access to their own site but block analytics.
LuLu and Radio Silence look like they block the entire app. Can someone confirm this?

With LuLu If you hit the 'add rule' button, you are presented with this:

So you are able to do what you ask, at process level.
I am not sure you can do what you want at application level.

 

[LarTeROn]

It seemed to work great but then internet seemed laggy with Firefox and I THINK it was LuLu because as soon as I disable it, things speed up.

I'm trying to figure out what that might be.

Firefox is Whitelisted. Maybe LuLu can't keep up with newly spawned Firefox processes?

 

[SaguaroSeven]

Lulu has advanced quite a bit since this thread started. I'm using it on one M1 Mac, but stick with Little Snitch on my other Macs. LuLu is somewhat disappointing to me: the UI is, well, spartan if not homely, and it has quite a bit less functionality than Little Snitch. Little Snitch is much more flexible on temporary rules and specifying domains, IPs, ports, etc. And LuLu keeps popping up alerts during s that "warn" me about an untrusted certificate (which is the result of NextDNS blocking logs.zoom.us); there is no way to stop this alert in LuLu. Each time Zoom attempts the connection, there's a big warning window (which incidentally, doesn't match the LuLu UI leading to confusion). I haven't experienced any particular slowdown -- unless a LuLu alert gets burried under other windows, awaiting user action.

On Reddit I see a lot of threads which can be summarized as "LuLu is better because it's free." Uh, ok, but software doesn't grow on trees. Sure it's nice that Patrick Wardell makes his great software available for "free" (he does ask for support on Patreon), but I'd rather pay for the more robust features in Little Snitch. My M1 is likely to get Little Snitch soon.

 

[TwoBytes]

Big Plus 1 for

Radio Silence | Network monitor and firewall for Mac

Radio Silence is a user-friendly firewall that blocks internet access from individual apps on your Mac

radiosilenceapp.com

Great dev, CHEAP! lightweight, simple and you don't need much more unless you're up to no good!