Netlink（网连）

English | 简体中文

A native macOS menu bar app that audits your network environment — public IP, proxy/VPN flags, DNS leaks, timezone consistency — and gives it a privacy score. The typical use case: checking how "clean" your network exit looks.

• Product name: 网连 (Netlink)
• Bundle ID: com.netlink.app
• Platform: macOS 13.0+, SwiftUI, App Sandbox + Hardened Runtime, outbound-only network access
• Category: Utilities (App Store product)

Download

Get the latest .dmg from the Releases page (Universal, macOS 13.0+).

Development-signed and not notarized — on first launch right‑click the app → Open. See the release notes for details.

Screenshots

All IPs and locations shown are demo data.

Smart Inspection	Public IP Info	Connectivity

Features

The main window has 12 pages, grouped in the sidebar:

Group	Page	Description
—	Smart Inspection	One-click full audit, aggregating all checks into a security score
Network Info	Local Network	Local interfaces, gateway, DNS, with live network-change monitoring
	Public IP Info	Aggregates ipwho.is / ipapi.is / Cloudflare trace and cross-checks IP consistency
	Proxy Detection	Proxy flag detection and WebRTC real-IP leak probing
	IP Risk	proxycheck risk score, Tor exit node and open-proxy flags
Checks & History	Connectivity	Reachability checks against popular services
	IP History	Public IP change log
	Score History / Details	Every audit's score on record, with per-deduction breakdowns
Environment	Timezone	System timezone vs. IP geolocation consistency
	System / Hardware	System info and hardware snapshot

System integration:

• Menu bar item: shows the live security score (color-coded); click behavior is configurable (open main window / run inspection).
• Notifications: public IP changed, proxy detected, timezone mismatch — each individually toggleable.
• Settings: UI language (System / 简体中文 / English, switches live), launch at login, menu bar click behavior, icon/score visibility, notification authorization guidance.

Usage

Install

• App Store: under review; install directly once published.
• Build from source: requires macOS 13+ and Xcode — see "Build from source" below.

Quick start

1. On first launch, allow notifications (optional) for IP-change and proxy-detection alerts.
2. On the Smart Inspection page, hit the Inspect button — a full audit completes in seconds with a score and a five-tier grade.
3. Open Score Details next to the score card to see every deduction and how to fix it.

Day to day

• Per-page refresh: each page's Refresh updates only that page and never touches the inspection score; the score only updates after a full inspection from the home page.
• Connectivity: "Check All" probes 10 popular sites concurrently for reachability and latency; individual sites can be retried. Results reflect reachability from your current network only.
• History: IP History keeps the latest entry per exit IP; Score History records every audit; both support clearing and JSON export.
• Menu bar: shows the icon and live color-coded score by default; click behavior, icon and score visibility are all configurable in Settings.
• Notifications: three independent toggles; when notifications are fully off or the menu bar icon is hidden, background polling pauses automatically to save traffic.
• Offline / flaky networks: checks rely on third-party public services (listed in the privacy policy); on failure the app keeps and labels the last successful result instead of blanking the UI.

Scoring model

The score uses a two-tier design:

1. Fatal items cap the score: exit IP in a restricted region caps at 35, Tor exit at 40, public-info fetch failure at 45; multiple fatal items stack an extra penalty.
2. Deductions accumulate: open proxy −12, multi-source IP mismatch −10, tiered proxycheck risk deductions, and more; total deductions cap at 60, floor score 15, mapped to five grades.

Additional signals: DNS leak detection (built-in known-DNS list) and IPv6 status.

Build from source

Requires macOS 13+, Xcode, and XcodeGen:

xcodegen generate   # regenerate the Xcode project after editing project.yml
xcodebuild -project CheckIP.xcodeproj -scheme CheckIP build
xcodebuild -project CheckIP.xcodeproj -scheme CheckIPTests test

Or just open CheckIP.xcodeproj in Xcode and run.

Roadmap

Issues and PRs welcome — these are the open items:

• Stronger DNS leak detection: probe the real resolution chain instead of inferring from a static list; return a neutral verdict when all DNS servers are unknown
• Smarter timezone consistency: same-UTC-offset but different IANA names should warn, not deduct
• Align the "timezone mismatch" notification semantics: fire on an actual detected mismatch (currently fires on system timezone change)
• Persist polled prefetch results: no stale-snapshot rollback after an IP change and app restart
• Customizable connectivity check sites
• Score history trend chart

License

MIT