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I don't have a smartphone (I have a symbian with access to the Internet), or iPod/iPad. Are there any other ways for me to get an authenticator from Blizzard without paying $6 for the physical authenticator?

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Although I understand your predicament, but since security seems to be a major concern for you, is shelling out $6 for a keyfob really going to set your back that much? You are paying a lot more than that for your monthly sub anyway? – deutschZuid Jun 17 '12 at 22:37
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@JamesJiao I'm pretty sure you've got postage on top of that, and if you are like me in AU, that adds up to quite a bit unfortunately. I do agree with the sentiment however. – Matthew Scharley Jun 17 '12 at 23:40
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There's no monthly subscription for Diablo 3... Yet. – Fluttershy Jun 17 '12 at 23:51

3 Answers

up vote 13 down vote accepted

Blizzard used to offer a J2ME-based authenticator for older phones, but they have since discontinued it. They now offer authenticators for iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7.

Other than a phone, your options would therefore be a tablet, iPod (touch), or the physical authenticator.

For those without such a device, the other answers propose alternative means. Android emulation may be a good way to go, seeing as you would still be using the official authenticator.

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Shucks. I dont have a tablet, and I was hoping to not spend any money for a physical authenticator. – user1277607 Jun 17 '12 at 19:30
@user1277607: Why is this marked as the answer? It is incorrect; check out Mr. November's answer... – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Jun 18 '12 at 16:20
Mr. November does give an interesting answer — and certainly a relevant one, I'd say — but the question is for an "authenticator from Blizzard". – Jamie Schembri Jun 18 '12 at 18:16
up vote 14 down vote

You can use WinAuth, which is a popular third party authenticator for Blizzard games. It's not quite as secure as the official means since if someone gains access to your computer they can use the authenticator, but it's far better than nothing(you could probably put it on a flash drive so it isn't always on your computer).

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Interesting! Wouldn't have considered there would be a third party option. – Jamie Schembri Jun 17 '12 at 19:40
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I wouldn't recommend doing this. One of the main advantages of having the authenticator is that it's on a separate device so that even if an attacker gains access to your machine they wouldn't be able to access your account. Using a third party authenticator negates this. – David Underwood Jun 17 '12 at 21:01
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@DavidUnderwood It's far better than no authenticator at all, and you can still have it on another device if you so desire. Even without taking that into consideration, someone hijacking your entire computer is far more rare than your typical keylogger or phishing scheme. – Mr. November Jun 17 '12 at 21:04
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WinAuth could still be run on a separate computer, and even within a virtual machine, providing just as good protection as a Mobile Authenticator. Actually, better than on a rooted-Android, as at least WinAuth encrypts the keys. In any case, still better than not having one. – cdm9002 Jun 17 '12 at 22:12
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@David: One of the Diablo 3 hackers stated on a forum that they were hacking accounts using username/password combos they had stolen from other sites - that is, most of the people who had their accounts stolen used the same username/password in other places as well. Having any sort of second-factor authentication, even a weaker one like this, would prevent those sorts of attacks. – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Jun 18 '12 at 0:55
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up vote 6 down vote

You can also use Googles development tools to emulate an Android phone on your desktop and then run Blizzards authenticator app.

An excellent write up of the process with links to the various needed downloads can be found in this blog post at Elitist Jerks

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This seems a better option than a third-party utility for the security paranoid. Also worth considering is an iOS emulator for Mac users. – Jamie Schembri Jun 19 '12 at 15:07
The problem with an iOS emulator is that it's only availiable to registered members of Apple's developer program. Which, at $99/year, isn't expensive if you actually want to use it to develop software. If you have no interest in that, it's kind of overkill. – LessPop_MoreFizz Aug 31 '12 at 11:47
Are you sure about that? Because I'm not subscribed to the developer program and I have a working emulator. In any case, I'm now pretty sure it's not possible to install apps on it. – Jamie Schembri Aug 31 '12 at 11:57

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