Computer gamers who wanted to play Battlefield 3 without Origin hat two options until now. They could get the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 version of the game, both of which shipped without Origin. Or, they could download a modified executable that would render Origin useless. Depending on the jurisdication, the latter method may have been outright illegal.

There is a third option according to the German computer magazine Golem.de that allows players to play the online shooter Battlefield 3 without Origin. Best of all, it does not require third party programs to be installed on the system.

All that it takes is to block Origin from accessing the Internet. This can be done in the Windows Firewall or any other software or hardware firewall available on the system.

The game can then be started by loading the following url in a compatible web browser: http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/gate/.

According to Golem’s information, that’s exactly what Origin does. Playing Battlefield 3 in multiplayer worked but only after disabling two features in the Origin configuration. Enable Origin In Game needs to be disabled under the Settings > In Game tab.

Second the Cloud Storage for supported games needs to be disabled as well.

Users can then open the Battlefield 3 Battlelog website manually in their web browser, log into their account and start joining servers just as they did before. The only difference is that Origin is not communicating with EA servers in the background anymore.

I’m not a Battlefield 3 player, which means that I cannot vouch for the method. It should however work with other games as well. I still hope that Star Wars The Old Republic will not force users to use Origin though as I’d prefer not to have Origin on my system at all.

Have you bought Battlefield 3? What’s your Origin experience so far?

Windows Firewall Notifier is a third party program for Windows 7 and Vista that improves the handling of the firewall in this regard. When you first start the firewall notifier it performs a series of actions.

The program enables the Windows Firewall if it is not enabled on the system. Once enabled, it will block all inbound and outbound connections for which no firewall rules exist. It then enables Windows firewall inbound connection notifications and outbound connections logging if disabled.

A task is then created in the Windows Task Scheduler that is linked to Windows firewall event log entries. This will basically launch Windows Firewall Notifier whenever an inbound or outbound connection for which no rule exist is blocked.

Configuring the program to run as a task means that it will not run in the background all the time. The Task Scheduler will launch the firewall notifier whenever the system tries to make a connection that is not listed under allowed or blocked connections. The following dialog is then displayed on the screen giving the Windows user options to allow or block the connection.

The notification lists the application’s name, system path and target IP or hostname. Buttons are available to allow or block the connection once, or to allow or block it always.

The program will make the selected changes to the firewall configuration before it closes down again. Users who want to uninstall the firewall software again need to run it again. A dialog to disable it is then presented on screen.

Windows Firewall Notifier is a handy program for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users who make use of the built-in firewall. The program, compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of supported Windows operating systems, is available for download at the developer website. (via)

I usually start with the game requirements. You find them in the manual, in a faq or readme on the CD, or on the developer homepage usually. A search for “game name ports” should be enough to bring up websites where the ports are listed. Ports? It would be way to technical to write everything there is to know about ports. Think of them as doors to your computer. Doors can be closed from both sides, or only from one side. Incoming traffic is usually allowed, while outgoing traffic is limited. Network traffic can utilize many different ports. Some are standardized, like port 21 for ftp connections, some are not and game dependent.

Once you have the ports, you need to check if and how they are blocked. There are basically two possibilities here. It is possible that software running on the PC is blocking the traffic. The most common software is a firewall that controls the traffic. The second possibility is hardware based, a router, hardware firewall or computer the traffic is routed through. Depending on your access level, you may have access to all configurations, to some, or none at all.

Hardware Connection Issues

Lets assume it is your home network and that you have full access to all devices and programs. It does not really matter if you start to check your hardware or software options first. I usually start with the hardware. Check the manual of the device, e.g. a router manual, to find out how you can access the devices configuration. It is either an IP address that you need to type in your favorite web browser or a domain name that is only locally valid.

I have to enter speedport.ip to open the admin interface of my Speedport W 920V router. You are usually asked to enter the admin password at this point. You find it on the router or in the router manual usually. If not, search the Internet for “device name default password” or “device admin password”.

While you are at it. Check the manual to find out how you configure ports in the device. On my device, I have to click on the Network entry, and then on NAT and Port rules to get there.

Make sure you add enable all ports that are required to play or host the game.

Try playing or hosting the game once you setup the ports. If it works, congratulations and lots of fun playing the game. If not, you may have a software firewall or other device that is blocking the traffic.

Software Connection Diagnostics

The sheer mass of firewall and security solutions makes that part difficulty. It can even happen that you have two different firewalls enabled, the Windows Firewall which ships with the operating system, and a second firewall that you have installed manually.

Lets look at Windows Firewall as this is probably the most common software firewall installed these days. Click the start button and select Control Panel from the start menu. Select System and Security, and in that menu Windows Firewall.

Windows displays the status of the firewall. If you see Connected, the firewall is active. If both are set to not connected, then the firewall is not active. You then need to check your system to see if another security program is running that controls the network traffic.

If it is on, you need to click on the “Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall” to see the access rights of the program or game you want to use. Windows displays a list of programs that are allowed to connect to the Internet. Look for the application or game in the list. If it is not there, add it with a click on Change Settings and another click on Allow another program.

Select the program from the list or click the browse button to add a program or game that is not listed there. A click on the add button in the same configuration menu adds the new program to the list. You can try to connect to multiplayer games or host games.

You can use software to check for open ports. Online tools such as Can You See Me, Port Check or Port Forward can help you check specific ports on a computer system.

Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments.

It is often a good idea to simply test the firewall for open ports. You see, ports are used for connections and only open ports can be used to connect to the PC. Common ports are port 80 for http connections (that’s web traffic using a browser usually) or port 21 for ftp connections. It does not make sense to have port 21 open if no ftp server is operated on the computer.

Shields UP is a free Internet service that can test ports on the local system. Users just need to open the https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 url in their web browser to load the configuration window.

From there is it just a matter of clicking on one of the available tests to run it.

The first three available tests are probably the most interesting. File Sharing tests for open file sharing ports, Common Ports the most common, popular and targeted ports, and all services ports the first 1056 ports of the system.

Each port is reported back as open, closed or stealthy. Open means that the port is accessible, closed that is is not and stealthy that they are blocked somewhere between the computer and the Internet, for instance by a router.

It is then up to the user to interpretate the results, the information posted on the test website offer a good starting point.

The first thing that we should make sure before we go ahead and repair the Windows Firewall is to verify that it is indeed turned on and running. To do that open the Windows Control Panel by clicking on the Start Orb in the lower left corner and then on the Control Panel link there.

Depending on the layout of the control Panel users find the Windows Firewall in the Security group, it is named Windows Firewall.

This opens a Control Panel applet. Locate the link Turn Windows Firewall on or off in the left sidebar and click it. The shield icon in front indicates that this requires elevated privileges.

The next screen indicates if the Windows Firewall is turned on in private networks and public network locations.

Third party security suites often recommend to turn off the Windows Firewall to avoid conflicts with their firewall. Make sure you only turn on the firewall if there is no other firewall running.

If the Control Panel applet is not displaying options to turn on or off the firewall, it may be because the Windows Firewall service is not running on the system.

To verify if it is running press Ctrl-R on the keyboard, enter services.msc and hit enter. This opens the Services configuration window. Locate Windows Firewall in the list of services and make sure it says it is Started. Check the Startup Type if it is not. The firewall service needs to be set to automatic startup. The startup type can be changed by double-clicking the entry and selecting Automatic from the list of available startup types.

Lets say you have checked that the Windows Firewall is turned on and running in the system. What if you experience problems related to it? Or, even worse, what if you cannot enable the Windows Firewall.

Repair WMI & Windows Firewall has been designed to repair problems associated with the Windows Firewall.

While helping people with their port forwarding I have found that if the Windows Firewall (which uses WMI) is broken then port forwarding will not work. And also other problems can happen with programs and networking.I made this app to simplify the process for users to get WMI and the Firewall working again.

What does it do? It seems to do a few things, like making sure the Windows Firewall Registry settings are there, or that all dlls and exes are registered on the system.

To use it, users simply press the Start button and wait until the process completes. The program needs to be started with elevated rights, to do that right-click it and select to run as an administrator. The program is available for download at the developer website.

The Windows 7 firewall will block the connection if the application has not been configured previously in the Windows Control Panel. The configuration can be strenuous especially in the beginning right after the first start of the operating system.

That’s where the Windows 7 Firewall Control steps in. The free version of the software program adds those application prompts to Windows 7. It displays a prompt whenever an unknown application tries to connect to the Internet.

This gives the user in front of the computer the option to enable or disable all traffic or enable only incoming or outgoing traffic. The selected setting will be stored in the program’s main interface only. This is one weakness of the program as it does not sync the settings with the Windows 7 Firewall. This is problematic as it means that the configured settings will be gone if the Windows 7 Firewall Control gets uninstalled. The reason for not syncing is that Windows 7 Firewall Control works independently from the Windows 7 Firewall. It does grab the configuration at startup but does not communicate with the firewall after that.

A pro version of Windows 7 Firewall Control is available offering additional features. Both versions can be downloaded at the developer’s website. (via Windows 7 News: Windows 7 Firewall Control)

Hank (thanks a lot) send a tip via email that explained who to enable or disable the Windows Vista Firewall with a simple shortcut, or better two shortcuts. He was using this approach to disable the firewall at home where a hardware firewall was protecting the PC and to enable it while on the road with his notebook.

To create the shortcuts right-click the desktop in Windows Vista and select to create a new shortcut. Name the first shortcut Firewall OFF and the second Firewall ON. Use the following two commands to enable or disable the firewall.

Windows Vista Firewall OFF:

%systemroot%\System32\netsh.exe firewall set opmode disable

Windows Vista Firewall ON:

%systemroot%\System32\netsh.exe firewall set opmode enable

A click on Firewall OFF would turn the Windows Vista Firewall off immediately and a click on Firewall ON would enable it again. To get rid of the command line window in the background right-click the shortcut and select to run the command minimized like in the screenshot above. The default setting is normal window.

I’m not a huge fan of software firewalls as you can tell from my previous posts on the subject. Still, if you rely on it and use it you might find this information useful. There are basically two methods of reseting the Windows Firewall.

My favorite one is by using the command line and the command netsh firewall reset which is all you need. The firewall will be reset which makes sure that any malicious changes to it are gone. All of your rules and changes are gone as well but that is the price you have to pay.

The second possibility would be to open the control panel, click on the Windows Firewall icon, there on the Advanced tab and finally on the Restore Defaults button.