Frankly, I am fed up trying to block the "phone-home" connections between our PCs and Microsoft and we're still only using Windows 7. There is absolutely no way

Frankly, I am fed up trying to block the "phone-home" connections between our PCs and Microsoft and we're still only using Windows 7. There is absolutely no way we would ever use Windows 10 unless we could guarantee that we could totally sever all such connections permanently and not have to worry about them again. Moreover, for some years now we have considered our Windows operating systems as 'hostile' privacy-busting code on our PCs and if there was some easy way we could get rid of them then we would do so in an instant (please don't come at me with the Linux bumph/argument because in many instances it's not a possible option). This really is tiresome, why can't we just buy Windows/Microsoft busting routers that have a big red button on them that says: "Stop all Phone-home to Microsoft" or alternatively ones that have easily updatable blocking lists/text files that we can easily administer/download to them? This ought to be an easy no-brainer but it isn't! Why is it that router manufacturers, etc. aren't falling all over themselves to provide such devices? I'm amazed that they're not, one would think there'd be dozens of available by now; are manufactures that timid and afraid of Microsoft that they're not game to make them? Furthermore, it is not only a Microsoft Windows O/S problem, as these days just about all software talks home without seeking the user's permission to do so beforehand, and none of them tell you exactly what information is being transmitting home. It seems to me that we users will never solve this "talk home" problem until we have easy to use gateways that are external to our PCs, phones etc. that automatically block all "phone-home" addresses. BTW, anyone thinking of developing such a device needs to keep in mind that for years Microsoft has hard-coded within Windows certain IP address that bypass the hosts file irrespective of how it is set so that it is impossible to block Windows completely from talking home. Thus, there is no other option other than to block these addresses by means that are external to the PC/device! A final point: Microsoft could claim that as it has provided the upgrade to Windows 10 free and that entitles it to sap the private life info out of its users. I would counter that by saying that if alternatively I actually buy/pay for the operating system then I'm entitled to have complete control over it—and that means no talkback to Microsoft by the OS. Of course, none of this would be a problem now if the Microsoft monopoly had been busted years ago (i.e. if our fearful democracies had been game enough to use already existing law to thwart the monopoly early on).