I just gave portmaster a try on a windows 11 test install desktop system and sadly am very disappointed.
First of all, I think it’s a bad idea to force people to use a secured dns provider in the setup and tell them in small letters below said option, that they can change that in the settings later.
While that might make sense for private laptops, it’s a no-go for stationary systems like desktops, as well as laptops running in a business environment where the internet access is filtered and restricted.
Nevertheless, I gave it a try, but for whatever reason, portmaster blocked all dns queries, despite configured to let those pass. Even changing the dns configuration to use my local pi-hole had no effect: I couldn’t open even a single website in my browser.
The per-app-configuration is also a hassle compared to Tinywall.
The only good thing about portmaster is getting some detailed information about the apps, like svchost.exe being the windows’ DNS client application.
The query log was quite hard to find, kind of like a needle in a haystack, at least in the advanced view. But in both views, compared to Tinywall, the UX-design seems non-existant.
So, in the end, I’m going to revert back to Tinywall on Windows, until I find a better solution.
I’m not yet sure, what I’ll do on the linux side, but I’m sure, there are solutions with a better UX-Design out there. I’m going to look into it soon and post my choice here later, in case anyone is interested.