Surely the biggest glaring flaw is that SP2 firewall is completely unable to block any outgoing stuff. I don't want anything sent out of TCP/UDP unless I allow it, certainly don't want anything sent to crl.microsoft.com every time I run a game. Pity SP2 broke Tiny personal firewall :(

Broke, yep just plain fubared. It was TPF v4. A bit old but insignificant memory and CPU usage, just a nice tight service. I'll have a look at this Kerio you mentioned, cheers.

There are enough reasons to control the outgoing traffic by yourself. 1. The useless traffic by windows components (GHP, LSA, etc etc) 2. The certificate function that is done when installing a game or application, or sometimes even when running those. 3. The Windows Explorer sometimes wants to connect to the internet even tho there is absolutely NO need for it to do so. 4. Trojans and other hijacks. (yeah yeah I know "if you know what youre doing you will never get a trojan", it still gives a lot of security, if you do something wrong at any given time. Simply install an aftermarket Personal Firewall and disable the crappy SP2 firewall completely. problem solved.

Isn't that the whole point of Anti-Virus software and firewalls, to help avoid these 'Issues' serious or otherwise. And a proxy is a rather obscure way of handling this issue.