SOLVED: Suspend and resume network activity

[lothark]

I'd like a tool that can live in the system notification area which when clicked toggles suspending/resuming network activity.

As you know, the installers for many programs do all sorts of things behind the scenes, including phoning home and possibly more nefarious things. What I want is a quick way to suspend network activity prior to initiating an install, and then resuming activity on completion.

I'm aware that some firewalls have or had options to do this, but I mainly only use the Windows' firewall.

I'd need this for Win XP and Win 7 machines.

My trawl of the Internet didn't turn up anything, but perhaps some of you know of such a tool? Or can create one?

[barney]

Internet Off might do what you want.

The advantage of this tool is that it lets you quickly turn off (and on) your internet connection from system tray. When you go offline all those distractions disappear. There's no Twitter, no chat, no web, only you and your tasks.

InternetOff can be downloaded from developer’s site here. It supports Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 (both 32 and 64bit)

I've had no opportunity to test it, but if it performs as advertised, it should do what you want.

Addendum:  here is another review.

[lothark]

That's pretty much exactly what I wanted. There's an extra click when turning back on, but it gets the job done.

Many thanks!