zlacker

>>myster+(OP)
I guess my habit of running a firewall and not allowing programs to access the internet unless they actually need it is helpful for stuff like this.

Absolutely no reason a text editor needs internet access.

I only update stuff through winget, which fetches the installer from github in a lot of cases, and changing a package requires a PR to the winget repo AFAIK. Not foolproof of course though.

>>Saris+8G1
LittleSnitch is great for MacOS; it is easily configured to alert you every time your machine makes ip/domain connections, which can then be accepted, denied, or rules made

>>scienc+ra2
Binisoft WFC for Windows is a free outbound firewall. It was acquired by MalwareBytes awhile back, but they have not interfered with development so far.

https://www.binisoft.org/wfc.php

It has some areas where improvement is needed, but the fundamentals work and the user interface design is decent.

I am surprised it's not more popular for Windows users. All of the alternatives I've tried have critical issues which made me dismiss them as unserious.