How can I disable galaxy's auto updates? It is annoying when firewall tugs me out of the game because galaxy udate service is trying to conncct to the internet.
I am ok with galaxy updating itself, but not in the middle of the game, come on....

You should find that feature in the general Galaxy settings. And you can also disable auto updating on a per-game basis. Alternatively you can also pause downloads/updates while you're playing. Although I think that is enabled by default.

I posted some screenshots to hopefully help finding the settings (because I am bad at explaining how to navigate the menus).
The attached screenshots are from Galaxy 2, but they're all present in Galaxy 1.x as well.

Now if any of these settings will help you with your firewall, I have no idea. But it may be worth to try. Good luck! :)