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@teleclimber Such an app has to be presumed malicious. In fact, ANY app that is monetized other than by paid download access or simply by donations is presumed malicious until proven otherwise.

I would drop Mac OS for Linux (I don't use proprietary anything but the hardware and firmware), but at a minimum I would suggest dropping Safari for Firefox with NoScript or uBlock Origin. While using https over DNS bypasses rules set in /etc/hosts, that just means firefox bypasses them. Other apps not https over DNS enabled do not, so you can do things like use a hosts.allow list (denies all but specified) to block everything BUT firefox and Torbrowser from talking to anything except sites your apps really do need. You really should dump apps that so much as politely request to track you however.

My own perspective on monetized apps and trackers is no quarter asked and no quarter given either. An app found trying to phone home faces summary deletion(well, I'm not going to use the word execution because I'm sure not going to let such code RUN here...)