Adding firewall rule on Windows Phone 8.1

Question

I really don't know how to look for what I am trying to achieve. I will add two images to show you in a better way what I am doing here.

As you can see I have added a blocking rule in firewall which will block a range of addresses(first rule on the second image) of a specific application.

Is there a way to do something similar on windows phone? I am not looking for some code or anything. Just for some guidance. Where should I look? What should I look for? Windows phone don't have firewall and I don't want to use any external firewall app's if there is one...

What is that you ant to achieve? Blocking IPs when being on Wifi to access your phone for a given application or for the whole device? — Benjamin Soulier, Sep 09 '16 at 11:53
Block IPs for a given application. Even though blocking those IPs for the device wouldn't change anything — John P., Sep 09 '16 at 22:55

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 29 '16 at 11:06

There is nothing like a firewall for Windows Phone. You don't have such a deep access to the network layer. Compared to desktop PC operating systems users and developers are much more restricted in the things they are allowed to do. That leads to less vulnerable systems.

The good side of a restricted system is that it's much harder (or almost implossible) to create a virus, trojaner etc. for it.

On the other hand you are not able to control the system in its depth since there is no API an anti virus software or firewall would need to consume.

In short: It's not possible to block IP addresses for specific applications.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 01 '16 at 11:48

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You can't do it with the public API (no such API is available), however you still able to achieve your goal on the interop unlocked handset.

Please refer to this forum about unlocking your phone, and this thread about blocking some sites (i.e. it's an old trick with the editing of \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file).

I'm pretty sure, you can also add a real firewall rule ('cause firewall service is up and running on the WP8.1 & up OS'es) to the registry but this require more investigation.

answered Oct 01 '16 at 11:48

SeNS

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**[update]** Just checked my Lumia 950 (interop unlocked, with "Interop Tools" installed): there are **standard** Windows firewall rules at the **HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SharedAccess\Parameters\FirewallPolicy\FirewallRules** So, you can block some IPs (or do whatever you want - whatever is possible with the standard Windows firewall rules) on your **interop unlocked** phone! The only GUI part is missing on the phone but you are always able to create your rule(s) on desktop and copy new registry value to the phone. – SeNS Oct 01 '16 at 12:28

Adding firewall rule on Windows Phone 8.1

2 Answers2