Category: privacy

Six Bartender Alternatives to Manage Your Mac’s Menu Bar

Popular Mac menu bar management utility Bartender was recently quietly sold to another company … However, the new Bartender owner is a largely unknown entity that has reportedly hiked Bartender’s purchase options, and is alleged to have added code to the app that may be associated with collecting analytics data on users.

Given that Bartender requires extensive permissions to operate in macOS, including screen recording, the whole event has understandably left many users concerned about privacy … here are some alternative menu bar utilities that are worth considering.

Source: Six Bartender Alternatives to Manage Your Mac’s Menu Bar | MacRumors

LuLu – a free alternative to Little Snitch?

If you use MacOS and you would like the functionality of Little Snitch but don’t want to pay for it, this might be an alternative to consider. I haven’t tested it, nor have I done a feature comparison between LuLu and Little Snitch, so this is just to note that it exists and nothing more.

In today’s connected world, it is rare to find an application or piece of malware that doesn’t communicate with a remote server.

LuLu is the free, open-source firewall that aims to block unknown outgoing connections, protecting your privacy and your Mac!

Source: Objective-See: LuLu

SCP Linux – Securely Copy Files Using SCP examples

This post includes SCP examples. SCP or secure copy allows secure transferring of files between a local host and a remote host or between two remote hosts. It uses the same authentication and security as the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol from which it is based. SCP is loved for it’s simplicity, security and pre-installed availability.

Source: SCP Linux – Securely Copy Files Using SCP examples (Hayden James)

If you have privacy concerns regarding Etcher (now known as balenaEtcher), here are some alternatives

We’ve used Etcher several times, mostly to make a bootable SD card for a Raspberry Pi or to put a bootable image of a Linux distribution onto a USB thumb drive. But we’re rethinking that now because we’ve read some concerns about privacy when using Etcher, or balenaEtcher as it is now called. … All we wanted to point out is that if you do have any concerns about using Etcher or balenaEtcher, there are alternatives, depending on which operating system you are using:

Source: If you have privacy concerns regarding Etcher (now known as balenaEtcher), here are some alternatives – Two “Sort Of” Tech Guys