Portmaster as a tool is free to use, no? Only their SPN is paid. I ask because I don’t use Windows and have not used Portmaster in years.
Perhaps the new owners, IVPN, can change the app behavior if the app really is asking for payment often when folks only want to use Portmaster and not the SPN.
I would pay 1000€/month just to not have to use the whole application, so it’s far from free.
edit. Let’s fix this a bit before someone starts demanding money. In my mind I pay 
You’re saying Portmaster is so bad that you’d pay $1000 a month to not have access to it?
I’ve been doing more research and Portmaster keeps coming up as a recommended choice…
Try it yourself and stop thinking about it so much. Then you can tell me tomorrow how wonderful it is.
People have their own reasons to not like a tool. From the quality of the product POV for what it does and how, there is nothing wrong with the product itself (unless something about it has changed this year that I don’t know about).
People not liking it are mostly personal biases.
I like Portmaster UI and options, but as I’m using VPN already, they would conflict on DNS, if I understood correctly.
In general, I don’t have need for firewall/traffic manager like this, as I try to avoid spyware anyways, but I like to check options from time to time. Yes, there are more simple and less resource hungry programs, but could be more intrusive (block by default, pop-ups all the time), like OpenSnitch (yes, i know this is windows topic) or Fort, mentioned above. So I’m not sure what is the better approach.
Simplewall.