DavidR
4
The windows 8 firewall has outbound protection, but it is disabled by default, unless you enabled outbound protection then that shouldn’t be effecting it.
Uninstall possible remnants of previously installed AVs see, http://singularlabs.com/uninstallers/security-software/, this has a collection of manufactures removal tools, so that should remove any remnants, registry, etc.
There is a Tool for Bitdefender listed in the above site.