macOS Apple M1: Hummingbird 1.1.1 released

[Staff 9972]

Hello!

We're very glad to announce that we have just released Hummingbird for Apple M1 based machines. Hummingbird is a robust, light-weight and very fast OpenVPN 3 command line tool for Linux and macOS offering DNS handling and rock solid traffic leaks prevention out of the box.

It's the first time that OpenVPN 3 library and Hummingbird are available as native software in M1 based Mac computers, providing faster execution speed and higher performance.

As usual Hummingbird uses our OpenVPN 3 AirVPN library fork, which includes bug fixes and very important features missing in the main branch. Please find overview, details, documentation and download link here:
 
Kind regards
 

[Maggie144 12]

nice one, love the performance plus. Albeit not having one, I'm eyeing an upcoming 16" laptop of them, if you can put my worries to rest.

I was wondering if the traffic leaks prevention was analysed with a computer on the outside?
Little bit uncertain of Apple, since hardware level silicone could allow them to circumvent any software network lock, like they do in iOS with their in-house apps.

[Staff 9972]

@Maggie144

Hello!

Since Network Lock is enforced via pf rules, which act directly on the kernel filtering table, it is not plausible that Apple services can bypass them. Leaks observed on Catalina and Big Sur with other software (not our software) take place because filtering rules are enforced via specific network API. The specific network filtering exceptions (for Apple programs) hard coded in macOS Catalina and Big Sur filtering API, which caused a lot of controversies (and rightly so), allow the horrendous behavior.

Actually, lack of traffic leaks when Eddie or Hummingbird Network Lock is active on Intel Mac has been thoroughly verified by us through external network sniffers. We confirm that nothing, including Apple services and apps, is able to bypass the firewall (pf) rules. We can perform the same verification on Mac M1 in the near future.

The problem in iOS is worse and can't be resolved, because in iOS devices you are not in control of the device filtering table (and you are not in control of the device in general). Anyway we do not write software for iOS, as you know. Should, in the future, "Apple Silicon" platforms evolve in iOS-like system which the user can not control, then they will be unsuitable for purposes where privacy and a layer of anonymity are a priority. We doubt anyway that Apple will expel its own customers from administrative device control like it did with iOS, but let's wait and see.

Kind regards
 

[Maggie144 12]

thank you for your reply. Please keep us updated on the upcoming network sniffer analysis.

All the best