All 100 ideasPrivacy and security
#75 of 100 · Privacy and security
Little Snitch for every platform
A per-app firewall that shows which program connects where and lets them block hosts per app, on Linux, Windows and phones.
Asks per year
What the askers want
- Would pay0%
- Want it local or private100%
- Object to subscriptions0%
- Want it open source or self-hosted23%
- Want AI to do it0%
Share of the 13 asks that say so, as judged by Jev.
What exists on Show HN
Built, still asked for1 Show HN launches do this job, and 4 more do part of it. People still ask, so the launches are missed, unknown, or not what they want. Ask what they’re missing before you build.
Instead of: Little Snitch, LuLu, OpenSnitch, Portmaster
The idea, as matched
An app firewall and network monitor like Little Snitch for Linux, Windows, iPhone and Android that shows which program connects where and lets me block it per app and per domain, ideally open source.
Jev first matched 17 requests to this idea; a second reader kept 13 of 17.
Every ask, newest first
Each line is an AI paraphrase of what the writer wanted. The link goes to their own words on Hacker News.
Reader’s note. Phones and Linux are the main gaps named.
- Sep 2024Wants a Little Snitch equivalent for Linux. Read it: a comment in “Little Snitch for Mac”
- Jan 2024Wants a Little Snitch-like per-app firewall for phones that does not rely on a fake VPN. Read it: a comment in “iPhone seemingly sends iOS keyboard data to an iCloud server”
- Nov 2021Wants a Linux tool to monitor which processes access folders or use heavy network, like Little Snitch. Read it: a comment in “Ask HN: What's the best way to secure your workstation?”
- Oct 2021Wants a simple utility showing each app's outbound data with checkbox blocking and smart allow-list defaults. Read it: a comment in “Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application that you open”
- Feb 2021Wants a tool showing which folders change and which programs call suspicious IPs, with blocking. Read it: a comment in “New malware found on 30k Macs has security pros stumped”
- Feb 2020Wants an open equivalent of TripMode on Linux, to disable chosen apps on a phone hotspot. Read it: a comment in “OpenSnitch is a GNU/Linux port of the Little Snitch application firewall”
- Feb 2019Wants per-app host whitelisting for Android network control. Read it: a comment in “Tracking my phone's silent connections”
- Feb 2019Wants a Little Snitch for iOS. Read it: a comment in “Apple tells app developers to disclose or remove screen recording code”
- Dec 2017Wants an open-source Windows firewall front end that whitelists apps and blocks everything else by default, without telemetry. Read it: a post: “Ask HN: TinyWall or something else?”
- Jul 2017Asks for a Little Snitch equivalent for Linux. Read it: a comment in “Little Snitch 4 is now available in final and stable version”
- Sep 2015Wants better tools to monitor outbound traffic from their own devices. Read it: a comment in “Popular Chinese iOS apps compromised in malware attack”
- Aug 2015Asks for a free open-source tool similar to Little Snitch. Read it: a comment in “OS X sudoers exploit found in the wild”
- Mar 2011Wants a simple app for jailbroken iPhones that shows what data the phone sends out. Read it: a comment in “Google's Disco is an iOS Trojan Horse”
Building this?
Read ten of the asks above first, because they say what the existing launches miss. If you ship it, post it as a Show HN so the next run of this list finds it.
Ship it like Vercel, on a server you own
This site runs on ShipTiffin. A push to GitHub deploys it, the way it would on Vercel, but the server is a Hetzner box in your own account. Postgres, sign-in, email, jobs and analytics are already on it, every project gets a hard limit, and nothing is billed by usage.
$19 a month per box, plus about $10 for the server at Hetzner. Open source, so you can also run it yourself for free.