Objective Development has released Little Snitch 3, an update of their Mac OS X application firewall. The main objective of the upgrade is to improve the usability for less experienced users.

Little Snitch is an application-based, interactive firewall for outgoing and incoming network connections. It alerts when an application attempts to connect to the Internet and so protects private or confidential data from being sent without the user's explicit consent.

Little Snitch monitors and intercepts the computer's network traffic on a per-application basis and provides fine-grained, rule based filtering options. Connection attempts that aren't yet covered by a rule can be allowed or denied interactively by the user.

In Little Snitch 3 a simplified Connection Alert presents connection attempts in a more compact way. It now offers a Research Assistant, guiding the user in the decision whether to allow or deny a connection.

The new Silent Mode is designed for situations where you don't want to get interrupted by any network related alerts; for example during presentations or while watching a movie. With Silent Mode you can choose to silence alerts for a while. Connection attempts are then handled silently in background and saved for later review.

For power users, Little Snitch 3 offers Profiles, allowing to switch between rulesets tailored to different environments such as unsafe public networks in Internet Cafes or high priced mobile internet. And with its new ability to manage incoming connections, Little Snitch is now a full-fledged, bidirectional firewall.

The redesigned Little Snitch 3 Network Monitor records a detailed history of recent network activity. It presents an animated list of all connections and a zoomable traffic diagram for real-time and retrospective in-depth analysis of individual or total traffic rates. Rules can be created directly from the connection list, and Little Snitch can show the rule responsible for a particular connection to be allowed or denied.

The improved Status Menu now shows real-time information about current traffic rates and denied connections. It provides access to frequently used actions like profile switching or enabling Silent Mode.

A tweaked configuration interface is designed to make it easier to maintain rules and profiles. A Ruleset Analyzer unveils the relationship between rules with different precedences. Finally, Little Snitch now offers automatically generated Rule Suggestions based on previous network activity.

Little Snitch 3 is compatible with Mac OS X 10.6.8 or higher. It can be downloaded from www.obdev.at/littlesnitch/download.html . A single license costs US$34.95.

Customers who have purchased Little Snitch 2 after May 1, 2012, qualify for a free upgrade. All other Little Snitch 2 license owners are eligible for a discounted upgrade at $16.95.