I just found something interesting and disturbing. If I set web shield to monitor all outbound connections, it bypasses WIN 7 firewall outbound processing! I testing this multiple times by disabling firewall rules for software that does updating and watching them connect with no firewall alerts. When I enable the firewall rule, the connection attempts are blocked.

I don’t know what this .1289 update is about but I don’t like it one bit.

BTW - I am still getting firewall alerts on outbound activity and they are always when I am connected to this forum.