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Home>Testing and reviews>REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac

REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac

Information

OS

Mac OS X 10.5/10.6/10.7, OS X 10.8/10.9/10.10/10.11, macOS 10.12/10.13

Price

Language

English, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Dutch, Italian

License

Shareware

Developer

Product page

  • OS Support
  • Security
  • Monitoring
  • Online Monitoring
  • Reports
  • Other
more

REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac Review

A good keylogger for your Mac. Better used for monitoring of your home computer. In our testing, it gets 506 out of possible 792 points.

REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac is a keylogger for OS X with functionality good for home monitoring. Because of nice and thought out interface is easy to use and requires no special knowledge for successful use.



Advantages:

  • Multi-OS support
  • Pleasant to look at, user friendly interface
  • Grouping of the intercepted information and settings into categories
  • Good stealthiness level



Disadvantages:

  • Doesn't intercept both sides of chat conversations
  • Very weak file activity monitoring



Today we are reviewing REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac!



Installation


Installation Screen
Installation Screen
Once we click the installation disk of REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac it shows us EULA. We click "Agree" and the application's disk image opens asking us either to launch the keylogger installation application or to read the Quick Start guide.



Once we launch the application, it opens and asks us whether we would like to install it to track activity of the computer. We click "Install", put in the administrator's password and read the message, informing us that the Monitoring Tool has been installed and all the events on this computer are being monitored now.



The next window that opens is "Settings" one, containing all the tools for configuration of REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac. There is not much information there, yet it is grouped into sections and is very easy to understand. Once we configure the keylogger, we close the "Settings" window and see the main window of the keystroke logger.



Interface


Main Window
Main Window
The main window of this macOS keylogger is divided into a few sections. The main controls are arranged horizontally on the top of the window. The intercepted information is grouped into sections, names of the which are shown in the left narrow column of the window, and the information itself is in the right one, occupying the rest of the window horizontally and approximately the half of it vertically. The rest of the place contains two windows: the left one, showing details about the logged information, and the right one, showing the corresponding screenshot, if any.


In general, the interface leaves an impression of a very nice and thought-out one, that is not only pleasant to look at, but also is very easy to use.



OS Support


The developer of the REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac declares its compatibility with:


  • macOS 10.13 High Sierra, 10.12 Sierra;
  • OS X 10.11 El Capitan, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.7 Lion;
  • Mac OS X 10.5 - 10.7;



Security


As for the security of REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac, the application is greatly hidden, can be accessed by pressing a configurable hotkey combination and is protected with a password.


Unfortunately, the keylogger doesn't allow its user to set a keyword he should type to access it and can't be set to uninstall itself on a pre-specified date. It also doesn't have an option of showing the users a warning message, informing them about the fact they are being monitored.



Monitoring


Screenshots
Screenshots
REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac perfectly logs typewriter and system keys, system log on/off time, logon password, clipboard content, started applications and opened documents. It also not only can make screenshots, but also allows its user to set their quality and frequency of making.


Unfortunately, this spy software doesn't log the rest of file activities, printed documents, mouse clicks and system inactivity time. The keylogger also cannot be configured to make screenshots of active window only, not of an entire screen and can't make screenshots every time the mouse button is clicked.



Online Monitoring


As for the "Online Monitoring" section, REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac records the URLs of sites visited in Safari, Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. You can also configure it to make a screenshot every time a new URL is visited.


Unfortunately, it doesn't log neither sent, not received emails and doesn't record both sides of chat conversations made in all the messengers taking part in our comparison.



Reports


Date Filter
Date Filter
You can configure REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac to monitor only the users of your Mac you are interested in. The user activity monitoring software also allows to perform a search in logs and configure a period of days you want to see the intercepted information for. Among the logs delivery options taking part in our testing, only the one option is present— the log files can be transferred by email.


Unfortunately, the keylogger also doesn't have any options for automatic logs' clearing and doesn't allow its user to choose which of the applications to monitor and which not to. You will also not find the duration of events in log files of REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac.



Other


Unfortunately, "Other" section is the one where REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac has little to show.


It doesn't allow its user to specify a list of important keywords it should react to, it can't block websites and applications and can't work on schedule. Good news is that the program is available in 6 languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Dutch and Italian



The Bottom Line


Summing up, we can say that despite the absence of some of the widespread features, REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac is a solution with enough functionality to monitor your home Mac that is very easy to use because of its nice and thought-out interface.

Monitoring Software Features

Monitoring this group analyzes what monitoring functions the products has, such as keystroke, clipboard, file-activity, etc monitoring.

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Online Monitoring the group that reflects the availability of the functions to monitor users’ online activity, such as URLs visited, 2-side chat conversations interception and emails sent/received.

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Security this group shows how hidden the product is and what self-protection mechanisms it has.

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

Reports the group that basically analyzes the convenience of the intercepted information reading, including not only the ways to filter and show it, but also to deliver it remotely.

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Other other functions that cannot be part of any of the other groups listed, though a still very important such as parental control functions, languages, reactions to specific keywords, etc.

No

No

No

No

Yes

No

No

OS Support this group reflect the number and quality of the operation systems supported by the products.

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Users’ rating is 5/5 based on 2 votes

Users’ reviews and comments for REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac

"The best alternative!"

Posted by Andre L. on February 23, 2018
Version under review: REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac
User Rating
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Pros

I have no words. Only good impressions.

Cons

A time-consuming pre-installation – a lot of steps to do!

Summary

There is any function you need, and even a bit more! That`s jaw-dropping!

"It worth using"

Posted by Dominik Ackerman on February 23, 2018
Version under review: REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac
User Rating
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Pros

Nice interface, any action is immediately sent to my email.

Cons

The price is very high as for a single user.

Summary

A very easy-to-use product with a lot of necessary functions! It is perfectly suited for the office!
 

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IMPORTANT! Installing computer monitoring tools on computers you do not own or do not have permission to monitor may violate local, state or federal law.