Compatibility or redundancy with various softwares, BlockBlock, DNS, Network filters, Chromium

shanertime

Hi, I have been using some software for my privacy and security for a few years and wondered if this software is compatible and/or redundant with F-Secure. My main MacBook Pro with macOS Monterrey Beta 4.

1. I use Objective-see's BlockBlock app, is F-Secure compatible with this software? Is BlockBlock redundant if I'm using F-Secure?
2. I'm using nextdns CLI, running from terminal at startup. Is F-Secure modifying anything with DNS requests when Secure Browsing and Banking is enabled?
3. I'm using Vallum as a firewall (similar to Little Snitch or Lulu). Is F-Secure modifying any pass/deny requests through the firewall that might conflict with rules set by Vallum?
4. I'm using a version of Chromium, eloston-chromium, and it does not show up in the list of browsers that I can install the F-Secure Browsing Protection extension into. Is Chromium supported?
5. Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and many other browsers offer a form of "Browsing Protection" (usually the google safe browsing service). Is F-Secure Browsing/Banking protection meant to run alongside these services or replace them?

And sorry I would normally post links to these softwares but it looks like my rep/rank is not high enough to post links ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ArthurVal

Hello, @shanertime!

Tried to answer all mentioned questions. Feel free to post any follow-ups if something is still unclear.

1. Indeed, there is an overlap between BlockBlock and the DeepGuard feature that we ship with FS Protection and other consumer products. These are not one-to-one matched but based on the same technology stack (Endpoint Security framework). Both can intercept and authorize various system events. I haven't tested co-existence of BlockBlock with DeepGuard lately so unfortunately cannot say for sure if they are compatible. But I do not exclude the possibility that there might be conflicts similar to those you might see when you have multiple anti-virus solutions installed. DeepGuard provides more flexibility in creating custom rules, operation mode and it has an F-Secure curated whitelist of trusted applications compared to BlockBlock. So I would say that BlockBlock represents a subset of functionally available in DeepGuard.
2. Secure Browsing does not intercept generic network or DNS requests. It works with cooperation with a browser extension. When it is enabled, the extension can provide additional reputation information in search engines like Google and prevent navigation to malicious/suspicious sites in the browser. Anything outside of the browser session is not intercepted.
3. FS Protection and other consumer products do not have their own implementation of firewall. It only controls the default macOS firewall.
4. Currently we support Safari, Chrome and Firefox. And I believe as some point we will add Microsoft Edge. I believe Chromium should be technically supported but it is not enabled as it was not throughly tested.
5. As mentioned above, our Browsing Protection feature provides additional URL reputation data on top of the functionality that exists in supported browsers. It will show safety ratings alongside search results in Google, Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo. It will also prevent navigation to known malicious sites or from a certain category (social media, alcohol, weapons, etc). And it will show a notification that will confirm that a trusted banking site was opened.

Best regards, Arthur

SAFE Mac R&D Team

shanertime

Typo, meant to type: "My main everyday work/personal machine is a MacBook Pro running macOS Monterrey Beta 4."