I see a bunch of blocked outgoing connections from my laptop that uses Win11 and I’m not surprised there. What got me laughing was analysing my network today as I found out that my Asus router is trying to initiate UDP connections to my Laptop and then I noticed EdgeWebView app initiating connections from my PC to werid URLs.
I have no idea what uses EdgeWebView at my current setup but I saw chatgpt.com. Why, how, what? Does anyone have any idea. I’ve been postponing switch to Linux on this machine for a while due to data migration and all those passkeys and such that are annoying to backup and transfer but today I got really angry but also laughing. Also other domain oaistatic.com is CDN from Canada but for OpenAI. - Also I don’t have a Copilot nor do I want it nor do I have anything openned up aside from 2 web browsers & slack
Anyone who understands Windows (if there is such a person) and their webview and why would Canada be involved please let me know. I’m really curious. Also, side question why does my Asus RT-AX58U try to initiate connections to my PC on random UDP ports would be nice to know? Can’t take a screenshot as I blocked connections and they disappeared from the list now
UPDATE:
Even Windows Photo for some reason wants to connect to internet. I guess I’m done I’ll just switch to Linux even if it takes a week
I would suggest something like https://www.glasswire.com/ to see what’s going on and who’s initiating it. Or, better yet (I want to do it myself, but don’t have the guts to do it) is to go the path of Outpost Firewall Pro - Wikipedia (sadly, no longer maintained) and write your own list of approved connections(yes, any firewall can do that, but this one left a good impression when I was using it).
I have firewall, as you can see this was detected by firewall then I blocked it but I don’t see what is activating EdgeWebView. I see that process is the one calling these domains but can’t get more info than that. I’ll see if glasswire or other solutions are any better but I assume they can also just list processes and state what is calling which domain but not what was originally triggering that processes to being with.
I think you first “humorous” answer is actually the correct one. God only knows what they install in the background during updates.
Here’s a laugh (guess who’s starting it? And no, I DON’T USE EDGE)
One real purpose of glasswire (free) is to have that “First network activity” notification of applications. Gives some insight on things going on. But nothing more.
I think you can try giving a shot with Resource Manager, going through every app and finding the one, trying to access that resource (I think it’s capable), then with help of “whatWasThatToolThatShowsParentChildProcesses” to find the one responsible.
Yeah, that’s the thing.
I made peace with that thought (running Win10, downloaded from a torrent and “activated”… and yeah, I trust this kind of software more than Microsoft).
Yeah, but from what I remember from that firewall I posted, it doesn’t have a “white list”, which by default skips “Windows related stuff” - every possible port/connection is monitored. And if you set the hardcore mode, where you basically have a “block all”(it even blocks itself from accessing its update and license servers), you can fully go through the process of acknowledged creation of rules for apps(and ports) to have communication with the outside world.
