How To Block Internet Access For Certain Programs Using Windows Firewall

How to block or Allow Applications Accessing Internet in Windows 10 Firewall by setting up rules. A basic overview.

Most of the time we want our applications online and connected to both our local network and the greater Internet. There are instances, however, when we want to prevent an application from connecting to the Internet.

This tutorial was performed on a Windows 10 computer. This will work with all major computer manufactures that are running the Windows 10 operating systems (Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Toshiba, Lenovo, Samsung, and so forth)

Some simple and commonplace examples are as follows. You might have an application that insists on automatically updating itself, but find that those updates break some functionality and you want to stop them. You might have a video game that you’re comfortable with your child playing, but you’re not so comfortable with the online (and unsupervised) multiplayer elements. You might be using an application with really obnoxious ads that can be silenced by cutting off the application’s Internet access.

Regardless of why you want to drop the cone of network connectivity silence over a given application, a trip into the guts of the Windows Firewall is an easy way to do so. Let’s take a look at how to block an application from accessing the local network and Internet now.

Creating a Windows Firewall Rule

Although we’ll be demonstrating this trick on Windows 10, the basic layout and premise has remained largely unchanged over the years and you can easily adapt this tutorial to earlier versions of Windows.

This tutorial will apply for computers, laptops, desktops,
and tablets running the Windows 10, Windows 8/8.1,
Windows 7 operating systems.Works for all major computer manufactures (Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Toshiba, Lenovo, Samsung)