ended up trying pc tools firewall and it worked ok, but didn’t really care for the interface all that much.
went to a program called comodo firewall and it works great. All the features I was looking for but not a very good gui imo. It would also be nice to see the entire list of applications that are blocked/allowed by the firewall, but unfortunately you can’t until their running.
overall though, I’d recommend it if anyone else is looking for a decent firewall