Stardock Unveils Connection Explorer, Bringing Visibility to Every Data Connection
Wednesday, November 12, 2025 by redskittlesonly | Discussion: Object Desktop News
Announcing Connection Explorer
Turn hidden network activity into an easy-to-read map of your digital world, now available in beta
Get into the Beta | Learn More
Today, Stardock announced a new product in an effort to advance data transparency as the company introduced Connection Explorer, a new application that adds a visual layer to the data connections your Windows PC creates. With an intuitive interface, intelligence alerts, and deep-dive capabilities, Connection Explorer is the first step to better understanding where your data is being sent and to stop any unwanted activity.
Every day, your PC creates hundreds of connections, but seeing this activity is a convoluted and opaque process. Connection Explorer was built from the ground up for one thing, to create a window of clarity into these connections to allow you to see what is happening on your device.
Packed with features that allow you to create intelligent alerts for activities, easily block unwanted activity, explore all your historical connection information, and add notes to DNS entries, Connection Explorer keeps you informed about what your device is doing and when it does it.
Stardock knows that you can’t always watch your connections for all hours of the day, which is why Connection Explorer makes it easy to set up alerts with an easy-to-use interface. Creating alerts for connections from unwanted locations, IP addresses, or ports, is easily configured and deployed in seconds.
“The modern desktop is a highly connected device that is uploading and downloading data all day long, our goal was to create an application that allowed you to see what is happening with your desktop” said Brad Sams, General Manager, Stardock Software. “With Connection Explorer, you now have the ability to see what is happening and better understand what your connected footprint looks like as you use your PC”.
Connection Explorer is designed for Windows 11 supports light/dark mode and is available today as a beta as part of Object Desktop. You can learn more about Connection Explorer on its app page, here.
Reply #2 Wednesday, November 12, 2025 5:09 PM
Love the program so far. But, noticed one slight issue, at least for me, it is a small issue. The TaskBar icon is very similar to the 4 or 5 that the company Razer uses for its group of software. At first glance, I thought it was one of their programs running.
Reply #3 Wednesday, November 12, 2025 7:29 PM
Pretty cool security tool. I like that OD is getting more software. Using OpenAI to analyze connections is a nice touch as well.
Reply #4 Thursday, November 13, 2025 1:39 AM
Excellent! My congratulations to the dev team. This will be chalked up as yet another excellent product and another winner for Stardock. I can see this becoming an essential part of the security suite of every IT admin.
Reply #5 Thursday, November 13, 2025 12:37 PM
In case anyone is wondering, I just installed this on WIndows 10 and it works perfectly.
Reply #6 Friday, November 14, 2025 8:19 AM
In case anyone is wondering, I just installed this on WIndows 10 and it works perfectly.
There's nothing explicitly in the app blocking Windows 10 compatibility but before releasing 1.0 it will move from .net8 to .net10 and with Win10 now EOL, we did all of our testing on W11.
Reply #7 Friday, November 14, 2025 9:40 AM
In case anyone is wondering, I just installed this on WIndows 10 and it works perfectly.
There's nothing explicitly in the app blocking Windows 10 compatibility but before releasing 1.0 it will move from .net8 to .net10 and with Win10 now EOL, we did all of our testing on W11.
OK Brad, thanks for the info. 
Reply #8 Tuesday, December 2, 2025 9:17 AM
This is great, but I think it doesn't go far enough: how about options to disable the MS telemetry/ads? Options to block known malware addresses?
If we're going to be able to see the connections, why can't we control the connections?
Reply #9 Thursday, December 4, 2025 8:54 AM
This is great, but I think it doesn't go far enough: how about options to disable the MS telemetry/ads? Options to block known malware addresses?
If we're going to be able to see the connections, why can't we control the connections?
First thing, is the app is still a beta, not even 1.0 yet - more features are coming.
The ability to block MS telemetry/ads is a very tricky area, it's not like Microsoft uses telem.windows.com:443 to do this, it's all blended into their various products. So yes, you could block the connection but then Teams/Outlook would stop functioning too.
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Reply #1 Wednesday, November 12, 2025 11:07 AM
Great new product!