Set Windows Firewall to block everything and ask for permission

Hi!

I've been trying to set Windows Firewall to behave like that, but can't figure how.

In two lines, I want this:

- Every attempt to connect to internet is blocked, and a pop-up warns about it and ask for permission.

- There's a "remember this action" checkbox so you only have to authorize Chrome, Mozilla, utorrent and other main internet apps once.

I'm pretty sure years ago this was the default behavior of Windows Firewall, wasn't it? Anyway, I'm trying to setup firewall to this, but can't see how. I've tried the most evident tweaks in Firewall setup, but I must be missing something.

Any help? Thanks in advance!

With the Windows firewall, it's not possible to do what you want. The fundamental lacking feature you're looking for are connection attempt notifications, which it doesn't have.

It has the ability to block outgoing connections (which is disabled by default), but you can enable and fine tune them on the advanced firewall settings, putting the rules to allow only certain programs to connect under certain protocols and ports. However, when a connection is blocked due to those rules, the firewall will NOT warn you (without chance of allow/deny), the program will simply fail with an access denied.

You may use a third party programs that attempt to give back those notifications. I've used Windows Firewall Notifier - Home, with limited success, but didn't find that useful. Give it a try at least. But if you really want reliable notifications, a good thing, I'm afraid you should begin to look at other, more serious firewall options.

Gracias mil, Alejandro, y un saludo desde Galicia.

Bad news, but at least I can stop wondering what I'm doing wrong ( ; Can't believe a "standard" firewall can't do something so basic. Amazing.

I'm a 3D/VFX guy, muy knowledge about nets and firewalls is at basic user level. Maybe that behavior I want, that seems so esasy and natural to me, is in fact something weird or difficult to manage, and that's why "home firewalls" dont give you that option. Because nobody wants that.

I tried to lock everithing with window firewall, and then create specific In and Out rules to allow Chrome, but it's not working. Don't know why. Maybe I should give permissions to some other "core" .exes, not only chrome.exe.

I'll take a look at that program you mention (thanks) and check features of the most common firewall apps, ZoneAlarm or so.

If it gets too tricky for me, I have a radical solution: That sensible machine won't be connected to Internet no longer, and problem solved.

I used ZoneAlarm years ago on Windows 2000 and Windows 98 before that. Windows 2000 didn't have a built in firewall. I rather liked it. If Windows firewall doesn't have the features you need then ZoneAlarm would probably be a good choice.

Windows firewall doesn't have some of these advanced features because they would be misunderstood and misused by many users. Remember that most Windows users know little to nothing about computers and don't want to learn.

That was Mac users!!!

Tonite I'll test Zone Alarm and report.

Thanks you all!

Zone Alarm rules.

Mark as Solved. Thanks to you all.