Can Mcafee Firewall Block Outgoing Connections ?

[#1]

Hi,  can anyone using the Mcafee addon tell me if you can block outgoing internet traffic so programs are not continually "calling home" ?
I'm running Windows 7 and the inbuilt firewall does not support, but there are some ways round it - just wanted to know what the options are before I install it.,
Many thanks

[#2]

yes
double click the mcaffee icon in the task area,
wait for it to open (which can be anywhere  up to 5 mins depending one what else is going on at the time )
click the word firewall, click the blue hperlink settings
on the next page click internet connections for programs
and scroll through to find what your looking for, highlight the item, then click the edit button and change from full/outgoing/block  then click save button, rinse and repeat until your done
if the programs arnt in the list, you need ot click the add button locate the offending program in the harddrive and set up a rule so it is blocked.
once your done with all of that, click the grey name bar for the internet connections for programs (to shrink it again)
then adjust the traffic controller (I have mine set at stealth) and click apply
 
then change the smart access advanced setting in the bar underneath (I have enabled smart advice box checked then block internet access at start-up and ask me to decide radial (click apply)
also use intrusion detection on basic (high just stops games from working)
I also have net guard turned off (again because it messes with gaming

[#3]

In inbuilt firewall on Windows 7 (and even Vista) is capable of blocking outgoing connections, it's just not configured to do so by default. See http://npr.me.uk/firewall.html

[#4]

in vista onwards if a program was installed in admin mode it can re-write any and all security protocols on the local machine (including firewall rules) because you gave it permission to do so when you installed and accepted the eula.....
so whilst you can temporarily block stuff from going online the next reboot and start-up check will just re-write your changes....
if your trying to stop that sort of thing you can simply run msconfig and uncheck both the services and the start-up entries, they will still phone home when you manually start them though, and of course if you disable the service of something it will probably no longer work until you enter the services page and change it from disabled to manual (so it only loads when you specifically request it to)
either way its not going to be  a very secure system if its not running updates for things

[#5]

Thanks for your replies - only just got Win7 and was not really aware of all the settings available, though seems like a pain to have to manually set up each rule using the stock firewall.
I previously used Zonealarm (under XP) and that was good because it allows you to choose at request time whether to allow a connection (or not) and remember that setting or, ask each time.  So you basically built up your rules automatically as you used/installed programs.
I tried ZoneAlarm under Win7 but had stability issues so got rid and went with the stock firewall with "Windows 7 Firewall Control" (free version) which seems to allow similar rule setup to ZoneAlarm, but it's not as elegant.
I take it from your replies that the McAfee product requires setup of these programs manually, though you allude to it keeping a list of programs, so maybe it remembers all the programs that have attempted to connect and then allows you to fine tune the setting - that would be better.
Guess I'll have a tinker and see what work best for me.
Thanks again

[#6]

it will require manual setup for anything already installed but you can set it to generate persistent handling of anything in the future, I gave you a list of the settings I used more because there open enough to allow all but p2p traffic whilst still protecting against unwanted attacks (both from updateware like the dreaded adobe + java stuff)
I like MacAfee in terms of the protection the full suit offers, I like the configurability and the simplicity of the user interface, I don't like how some stuff hides, I don't like the uninstall or update process requiring a removal tool to be run after uninstalling with 2 reboots before running a re install..
and I don't like the way it slows up a low powered system (my old Pentium 4 system really suffers but I use it as a media centre so it needs protecting to avoid being the weak link on my network ....

and I use terms like mcrapee icrap crapple spamdroid and windoze, all of which are in my view apt names for various products, aside from crapple (whose products I stopped using back in 04) I use stuff by all the others on a daily basis ....