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Windows Software for Controlling Outgoing Packets?
non carborundum asks: "When using Windows I use Zonealarm because I like its ability to control outgoing packets. It's a good way to find out if some program is trying to call home. Zonealarm is much better than nothing, but 1 prefer open source solutions. Besides, it is overkill - I don't use it as a firewall, since I have a router, and it uses several megabytes of RAM. Better still would be a reverse honeypot - an app that catches outgoing requests, tests them against a database of known offending addresses and/or ports, and (optionally) tricks the offending application into thinking it has successfully phoned home. XP users in particular might be interested in such a tool."
Absolutely, you can render your system very unstable if you start using the firewall to block normal network messages. I've seen this quite often with novice users who install ZA and then block darned near everything going out of their PC. Then they're puzzled because their Internet connection doesn't work. "But thank goodness I stopped some hacker thing named 'svchost'..."
If you don't know how to use power tools, then stop before you lose a finger.