by the way i found instead of blocking app within firewall which would disable git integration and plugin browser the better way is to enable proxy with loopback and no proxy for the sites you want
from my very light looking into it with my firewall it seems to use aws ec2 servers to check it with different ips every time, i dont think you can just do a basic hosts file block anymore here are 2 examples of the connections just before it deactivated my license( sorry for bright image windows screenshot doesnt like my hdr monitor)