Murus For Mac

A while ago macOS came with two default firewalls installed, IPFW and IPFW 2. In spite of the fact that IPFW worked brilliantly, with the release of macOS 10.7, all versions of macOS switched to the OpenBSD PF (short for Packet Filter) firewalling solution, that brings some improvements over the now outdated IPFW.

PF works well, but room for improvement still exists. The main problem is that when you want to customize its rules, the default way to do this is to use a command-line and text based interface which means that you will have to work with the sometimes uninviting Terminal app.

In your aid and with a solution to this problem comes Murus, a streamlined and user-friendly front end for PF that enables you to easily create a complex firewall configuration, without having to be an advanced user of the Terminal app.

Also, Murus offers a friendly view over the PF firewall and comes with built-in support for filtering and logging via many firewall rule presets.

The fact that Murus’ interface is designed with ease of access in mind, becomes evident once you first start the application.

Murus’ main window is made out of two parts: in the left you find the “Services Library” panel, while on the right side of the screen there is a “Managed Outbound Services” panel.

In order to start configuring the firewall settings, you must simply drag and drop the icons from the left panel into the right panel, and select a couple of check-boxes, thus eliminating the need to write rules on your own or having to understand the somehow complicated PF syntax.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that Murus offers you the possibility to have a better view of the whole process via an expanded PF Configuration window and with the help of icons, symbols and actively generated annotations for each rule.

Murus is one of the best examples of what software products are meant to do, and that is to make your life easier and better, by helping you save time and energy without having to deal with complicated and time consuming workflows.