Accessing a WCF Service from a port other than 80

Question

I built a WCF Service in a computer of my office network.

I'm able to see the service from my other computers only after creating a TCP Port Inbound rule in the Windows Firewall with port number 80.

Is there a way of using a port other than 80 without port forwarding?, I'm using Win 7, WCF 4, basicHttpBinding.

I have learned that using port 80 is not recommended because if you are planning to install your application in other networks beside yours, the port 80 is already used by other known applications, like skype.

I want to know if there is some more natural way of doing it besides port forwarding.

Answer 1

I hate skype for doing that. Anyways, your assertion is incorrect. Port 80 is reserved for HTTP (the fact that Skype uses it for other reasons irks me so). Typically, when a program uses a port, other programs cannot also use that port. This is slightly different with HTTP. WAS allows several programs to use the same port to host HTTP content on different paths.

So if you want to use 80 for non-HTTP purposes, yes, you should not use port 80 for your WCF service.

However 80 IS FOR HTTP. Other protocols should NEVER use port 80 (I'm looking at you skype).