Radio Silence 3.4 — Mac version

It runs on any Mac with macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or newer, covering both old Intel machines and Apple Silicon models. Radio Silence is a straightforward network monitor and firewall that puts you in charge of which apps can talk to the internet, without any fussy configuration screens.

• Pick an app, flip a switch, and its internet access is cut off — no complicated rules to write.
• Shows a live list of connections your apps are making, so you can spot what's phoning home.
• Pause the firewall with one click when you need to let everything through temporarily.
• Block an app, then remove it from the block list later if you change your mind.
• Watches incoming and outgoing traffic without slowing your machine down.

It's the sort of tool that suits anyone who wants to stop a specific piece of software from updating, syncing, or sending data back to its maker. No charts, no jargon — just a tidy window that shows what's connecting and a block button that does exactly what you'd expect.

Before you install — things people ask

Does Radio Silence show up in the menu bar? It doesn't. There is no icon, no badge, no persistent indicator. The app runs quietly in the background once you have set it up. If you want to check what is blocked or add another app to the list, you open it from your Applications folder like any other program. Some folks find that unnerving at first because they are used to firewall tools that announce themselves. The trade-off is less clutter and one fewer thing drawing power or attention.

Will it block system processes or break my internet? It only blocks what you tell it to block. The default state is everything allowed. You pick the apps, you add them to the block list, and only those apps lose network access. Your browser, Mail, and every other piece of software carry on as normal unless you specifically flip the switch. If you ever feel unsure, the pause button stops all blocking instantly — no need to undo individual entries.

What happens when an app is blocked but tries to connect? Radio Silence simply drops the connection attempt. The blocked app sees no internet — no partial handshake, no error message from the firewall, just silence. From the app's point of view, the network is unreachable. That is where the name comes from. Most apps handle this gracefully and either retry quietly or show their own "no connection" message.

Check launch-at-login before blocking apps

Out of the box, Radio Silence does not need much tweaking, but there are a couple of things worth doing before you start blocking apps in earnest.

Check the launch-at-login behaviour. By default the app loads when you log in, which is what you want for a firewall. Open the app, look in its preferences, and make sure that option is ticked. If you have ever installed a radio silence mac download from a bundled installer, double-check that nothing else sneaked into your login items at the same time — it is good housekeeping.

Give it full disk access if asked. Modern macOS versions are cagey about letting apps watch network activity. If Radio Silence prompts you to enable permissions in System Settings > Privacy & Security, do it. Without the right permissions the monitoring side of the app works partially or not at all, and you might blame the tool when macOS is the one getting in the way. Version 3.4 includes better handling of these permission errors, so follow the on-screen guidance if it appears.

Set the monitoring view to show what you care about. The live connection list can get busy if you have a lot of apps open. You can filter it to show only the processes you are curious about. Spend thirty seconds learning how that filter works and you will find the tool far more useful day to day — otherwise the list just becomes background noise.

Blocked apps still connect through helper processes

"I blocked an app but it still seems to connect." Nine times out of ten this is down to helper processes. A big application often spawns smaller background workers with different names — think updaters, crash reporters, or sync agents. Open the live connection list while the app is running, watch what appears, and block those helpers too. Once you catch all the tentacles, the silence sticks.

"The firewall stopped working after a macOS update." Apple's system updates have a habit of resetting network extension permissions. After upgrading macOS, open Radio Silence and look for any permission alerts. If the block list seems ignored, try removing one app from the firewall list and adding it back — that nudges the extension to reload. If you grabbed a Radio Silence Mac torrent from a third-party source, just make sure the version matches your macOS release so it plays nice with the new security layers.

"I cannot see any connections in the monitor." This usually means the network extension did not load properly. Reboot the Mac — seriously, a restart fixes a surprising number of extension-loading quirks. If that does not help, check System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions and look under Network Extensions. You should see an entry for Radio Silence. Toggle it off, wait a moment, toggle it back on, then open the app again. The troubleshooting view added in version 3.4 will guide you through this if the app itself detects a problem on launch.

"I forgot what I blocked and now something important won't work." Open the Firewall tab, scan the list, and look for anything you do not recognise. If you are unsure, remove an entry and test. You can always add it back. The pause button is your friend here — pause the firewall, check if the broken thing starts working, then unpause and methodically narrow down which blocked app was the culprit. No harm done.

• Added installation guidance for macOS Tahoe.
• Better handling of installation errors and missing permissions.
• New help view appears with troubleshooting info if the app fails to launch.

• macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or later
• Works on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs