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. Read on as we show you how to lock down an application via the Windows Firewall.

Why Do I Want To Do This?

Some of you might have been sold immediately by the headline, as blocking an application is exactly what you’ve been wanting to do. Others may have opened this tutorial curious as to why one would block an application in the first place.

Although you generally want your applications to have free access to the network (after all what good is a web browser that can’t reach the web) there are a variety of situations in which you may wish to prevent an application from accessing the network.

Just do as shown below-

1. On your Windows PC, open the Start Menu and go to Control Panel.
2. Click on Windows Firewall in Control Panel.
3. On the left side of the next window, click on Advanced settings.
4. Click on Outbound Rules. Here you can restrict internet access for a particular app.

5. Under the Actions panel on the right side of the window, click on New Rule.
6. Click on Program and press Next.
7. Type the path where your program is installed or locate it with the Browse option. 

The application path is generally in the form “C:\Program Files\application.exe” or “C:\Program Files(x86)\application.exe” where ‘application’ is the name of the program you want to block from having internet access.
8. In the Action window, select Block the connection. Press Next.
9. Select when your blocking rules apply to the program. Select all the three options to cut off internet access completely.
10. Give a name to the new rule you just created. 

In this example, I have created a rule to block internet connection to Mozilla Firefox, so I have named the rule “Block Firefox.” You can choose any name you desire.
Click on Finish, and your rule gets activated. You should now see the new rule you created under Outbound Rules.
Go ahead and block inbound connections, too, if you want to completely block internet access for the program. Select “inbound rules” in step 4 and the rest of the steps are similar.

So, guys, this is how you can cut-off network access for a particular app and program in Windows 10 and older versions. The above-mentioned method works for almost every program installed on your machine, even the UWP apps that are supported in Windows 10.