Have you tried blocking QB using the internal firewall? Months ago I've added a Windows 10 outbound firewall rule to block QBW32.EXE and QBW32Pro.EXE to any address using any port. I have not had any issue using my QB Pro 2021. My EXE versions from above are dated 5/20/2022. I still get updates because it uses a different process that does go through the firewall and allows the updates to happen.
As someone else previously had mentioned he had done the same blocking with success, but used the HOSTS file. Either way it seems if you can block QB from the internet, it should work okay.
I would guess this has something to do with Internet Explorer being retired recently. And since QB relies heavily on IE for web tasks, maybe their web programming skills just aren't up to par.
