The Windows Firewall for Vista and Windows 7 allows you to block outbound connections, something that
Windows XP didn't. To block outgoing connections:
- Press the Start button.
- Open Control Panel.
- Click on Administrative Tools.
- Click on Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.
- Click on Windows Firewall Properties.
- Select the Private Profile tab. (or the Public or Domain tab if you are on that type of network.)
- Choose Block in the drop down for outbound connections.
Now Windows will block outgoing connection. I did however not see any notification when an outbound connection was blocked. There's an option to display a notification about blocked inbound connections, but I could not find anything about outbound connections. Anyone know how to enable these?
Didnt found the option.
ReplyDeleteHad to choose a different FW
I am wondering the same thing right now with windows 7.
ReplyDeleteI seams like more then just a oversight to me, I think they did it that way so you would have to get a separate application to get true firewall.
It is not possible to get notification prompts for outbound connection blocking using the Windows 7 firewall. MS has stated that they decided not to include this ability due to the cost -- specifically, the cost to MS and vendors in the additional support burden it would introduce.
ReplyDeleteOf course I'd argue that just having it available as an option, turned off by default, would have alleviated much of the support burden. But so it is.
The free version of Windows 7 Firewall Control from http://www.sphinx-soft.com/Vista/order.html seems to work pretty well if you don't care about fine-grained control.
This product is NOT an addon for the builtin firewall. Instead, it utilizes the Windows Filtering Platform (WFP), which is the same core technology that the builtin firewall also uses for its connection filtering/blocking. Windows 7 Firewall Control basically runs alongside the regular firewall (if you choose to leave it enabled), shows notifications for new applications/connections, and lets you create rules which are obeyed by the core WFP system.
Is it really not possible for you to write how to enable/disable inbound notifications? Maybe it will teach us something about how to hack a way to do the same thing for outbound connections.
ReplyDeleteI can't find details on how to set outbound notifications, it would be nice if there was a website that detailed how to...
ReplyDeleteSurely it would reduce support costs when you're trying to work out just which program needs to make an outbound connection
ReplyDelete