Security menu bar apps

What security menu bar apps do

Security apps in the menu bar report a state rather than doing a job: whether the camera or the microphone is in use and by what, whether the firewall is up, whether the screen will lock when you walk away, whether anything is listening on the network.

A setting you cannot see is a setting you assume. The menu bar is the only place on a Mac where something can stay visible without a window open, which makes it the only place a state can be checked by glancing rather than by remembering to check.

1 listed: 1 paid. Of those, 1 with a free trial.

What to compare

• Reporting, or changing. An app that tells you the firewall is off and an app that can turn it on are two different amounts of power over your machine. The first is worth very little risk; the second is worth reading about first.
• Whether the source is readable. This is the category where open source is worth the most. An app whose whole claim is that it is watching something on your behalf is one where being able to check that claim is the point. The open ones across every category are at /open-source.
• Where the state goes. Most of these never send anything anywhere, and for this kind of app that is the expected answer rather than a feature. Anything reporting your machine's state somewhere else should say so plainly, and the listings carry what the developer states.
• What happens when it stops. A watcher that quits silently leaves an indicator that is no longer true, which is worse than no indicator. The ones worth having say when they have stopped looking.

Questions

Does macOS not already show when the camera is on?

It does. A green light beside the camera means it is recording, and the microphone has an indicator of its own with the app that is using it named in Control Centre. What macOS does not do is keep any of that where you can see it without opening something, or tell you anything about a minute ago.

Should I trust a security app that is not open source?

That is a judgement rather than a rule, and plenty of closed apps are made by people who have been doing this for years. The thing worth looking at is what it asks for: an app that only reads a state needs far less than one that changes it, and the gap between what it needs and what it asks is the part that tells you something.

What is a menu bar app?

An app that lives in the strip along the top of the screen instead of the Dock. It has an icon there, and clicking it drops down a small window. Most have no main window at all, so they stay out of the way until you want them and never appear when you switch apps.

Do menu bar apps slow a Mac down?

Each one is a running process, so a dozen of them is a dozen processes. Most sit idle and cost close to nothing. The ones worth watching are those doing work when you are not looking: reading the screen, polling a server, or watching every file you save. Activity Monitor will tell you which is which on your own machine.

My menu bar is full. What then?

macOS drops icons that no longer fit, and on a Mac with a notch there is less room than there looks. Holding Command and dragging rearranges them, so the ones you use can be kept to the left of the crowd. There are also apps whose whole job is hiding and grouping the rest, listed here under Utilities.