Can such thing really improve security? I remember the times when Desktop Firewalls like ZoneAlarm got popular, there were dozens of tech talks that showed how baby simple it was to bypass them. I think it was common sense these times that this tools are nothing than SnakeOil. They are useless against real Trojans and only cause a lot of work for the user with all that false positives. In worst case it's blocking applications from self updating which can lead to a less secure system.

Has this changed nowadays? Especially when we are talking about little snitch which has a really good reputation like I noticed the last years.