How do I whitelist addresses blocked by Windows Defender Firewall?

My Windows 10 is blocking Internet access to certain Web sites. Every time this happens, a notification about "virus & threat protection connection blocked" notification pops up. If I disable WDFW, I could get to the destinations in question.

I don't want to have to repeat the process every time, so I checked the WDFW outbound and inbound rules as well as the HOST file. The Web sites are not on their lists. From where or on what then is WDFW basing its action? From MS or 3rd-party sources? Most importantly, how do I whitelist the addresses (because I don't want to disable the FW)? I tried creating outbound rules in WDFW allowing access to the IP addresses, no go.

hello10 said:

Every time this happens, a notification about "virus & threat protection connection blocked" notification pops up.

Could be a number of things. Screenshot please, will help identify the cause.

Just want to know how to whitelist a Web address WDFW is blocking, because it doesn't like me to visit it and not exactly because it's really harmful.

Windows Defender ATP is normally only enabled in Enterprise, though it can be enabled in other editions. Have you been playing?

I am using Home. Am not aware of deliberately enabling it.

I downloaded and executed Disable_Windows_Defender_Network_Protection.reg, then restarted the computer. The blocking is gone. I wouldn't have thought it was caused by a so-called "Windows Defender Exploit Guard Network Protection." Thanks to you and Brink for the assistance and information.

hello10 said:

My Windows 10 is blocking Internet access to certain Web sites. Every time this happens, a notification about "virus & threat protection connection blocked" notification pops up. If I disable WDFW, I could get to the destinations in question.

I don't want to have to repeat the process every time, so I checked the WDFW outbound and inbound rules as well as the HOST file. The Web sites are not on their lists. From where or on what then is WDFW basing its action? From MS or 3rd-party sources? Most importantly, how do I whitelist the addresses (because I don't want to disable the FW)? I tried creating outbound rules in WDFW allowing access to the IP addresses, no go.

Try going to file you are trying to open and right clicking it first, then click "run as administrator" This should fix problem.