How to disable/remove gamertag profile images from Steam games.

[neon/drifter]

Hello all,

So I'm posting this because months ago when I started looking for a solution to this issue, I would have LOVED to have just come across a post like this that explains it plain and simple.

I'm certain there are parents or even many users that just wish for some of their gaming experiences to not be tainted by the sometimes lewd and offensive images that some Steam users employ for their Steam avatars.

Some games might allow you to toggle them off, but many don't and so, I wanted to find a way to make it so that my younger relatives could enjoy a game like Rocket League without seeing stuff that would get me in trouble with their parents.

This solution isn't here to change the games for everyone, just for those who'd like a more modest gaming experience at times.

To explain, I learned that the root of the problem was the source of the avatar images. Those don't come from the games themselves, they come from Steam. And so, with a little help from some people with networking expertise (thanks !Juest!), I found that the solution to the problem was to cut off network access to the part of Steam that provides the games with avatar images.

I still don't understand the entirety of this myself but it works and essentially, if you modify your PC's network settings to ignore traffic from a certain part of Steam, you'll have a clean game with no user created offensive avatar images.

THEREFORE, THIS MODIFICATION DOES NOT ALTER ANY GAMES OR STEAM IN ANY WAY. IT ONLY MODIFIES YOUR COMPUTER'S METHOD OF RECEIVING CERTAIN NETWORK TRAFFIC.

So! That said, here are the instructions for how I did this using Windows 10... If you're willing to try it out, let me know what happens for you.

• Press Windows Key, start typing "Notepad" When Notepad comes up, right click it, run as Administrator.
  
• While inside the Notepad application, click "File" then "Open..."
  
• The file you want to open and modify is here: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
  
• Within this file, you'll see a lot of examples and notes teaching you how to use it. Read that if you want. But from here, the instructions are simple...
  
• Beneath all the text in this file, simply paste the following...
  0.0.0.0 cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com
  0.0.0.0 media.steamcommunity.com
  0.0.0.0 community.akamai.steamstatic.com.edgesuite.net
  
• Save the notepad file. If you ever want to undo any of this, simply go back to the file and put a "#" before each line OR remove these additions altogether. It'll be back to normal.
  
• Now, hit Windows Key, start typing cmd, right click Command Prompt and run as Administrator.
  
• Within the Command Prompt, simply type this exactly and hit enter: ipconfig/flushdns

Now you should be able to go play a Steam game, everyone should just have a question mark where their avatar image normally would be.

To elaborate, all this method does is block all incoming traffic from the IP's and aliases we listed. From what I've tested so far, the only things that this method disables are...

1. Gamer profile images won't show up in game.
2. When installing a new game on Steam, Steam won't receive the game icon or game banner. It'll still download the games though.
3. This does NOT affect the networking behind achievements and you'll still receive in game achievements.

So if anyone wants to suggest tweaking this or possibly mention why something might go wrong with this method, that'd be great. I've only tested two games thus far, those being Armello and Rocket League and they both meet the goal completely.

Hope this helps someone else out.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Report offensive avatars through the users profille. Ask the developer of the game to incorporate that in their game.

[B l u e b e r r y P o p t a r t]

There is no need to modify anything, if you need to do this with children you are letting play these games then they are to young to be playing them anyways.

Escrito originalmente por cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Report offensive avatars through the users profille. Ask the developer of the game to incorporate that in their game.

:qr:

This.

[neon/drifter]

Escrito originalmente por cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Report offensive avatars through the users profille. Ask the developer of the game to incorporate that in their game.

:qr:

I've actually done both regularly. I can link you to the thread where Armello's devs told me "We'll get to that after a years worth of other stuff on our plate and only if a lot of people want the feature." (even though the feature wasn't in the game when I bought it, and only added after the fact.)

Thing is, not a lot of people want this solution, I acknowledge that it's not a problem for many but there it is, I hope it helps someone. And regarding reporting the avatars, reporting the offensive images doesn't stop the problem of having to deal with them in the first place and thats what I sought out this solution for.

[G-Starrkiller]

@PixelTechinician Does this still work for you? I have just tried doing it, but it seems to have no effect.

[neon/drifter]

Escrito originalmente por G-Starrkiller:

@PixelTechinician Does this still work for you? I have just tried doing it, but it seems to have no effect.

Hey there, years have passed since this method began and I can say that at this moment I am still using the modified host file, but I do see avatars and profile pictures in my friends list.

That said, I originally worked on this to avoid seeing surprises from those in online games. I'm going to test that now and see if it still works for me and I'll get back to you. In the meantime, could you tell me what you've tried? Like, what games have you tried playing? Did you flush the DNS?

Some new things to try since the Steam Client has changed so much.

Go to Settings

Downloads>Clear Download Cache

Web Browser>Delete Web Browser Cache and Delete All Browser Cookies

Admittedly, I'm not a networking expert, I just know what I know. We're just poking buttons to clean out whatever the Steam Client retains.

Because if you're applying this host file modification after having already used Steam, it may be recalling things from cached memory even if it's blocked properly.

So just lemme know what you've tried while i redownload rocket league to test this out lol.

ETA: I just tried a few sessions of Rocket League and didn't see anyones avatar/profile photos so the host fix still works on my end. Let me know if I can help!

[G-Starrkiller]

First of all sorry for the late reply!

I wanted to do this also for Rocket League...
I have tried following the steps from your original post (including flushing the dns). But I think I also had Steam running while applying this, even though I also tried rebooting my computer.

But I think since it's still working for you even in 2020, I just have to play around a bit :D

Thank you very much for your effort!! I guess I will reply here again when I got it working...or I have another question! :P

[neon/drifter]

Escrito originalmente por G-Starrkiller:

First of all sorry for the late reply!

I wanted to do this also for Rocket League...
I have tried following the steps from your original post (including flushing the dns). But I think I also had Steam running while applying this, even though I also tried rebooting my computer.

But I think since it's still working for you even in 2020, I just have to play around a bit :D

Thank you very much for your effort!! I guess I will reply here again when I got it working...or I have another question! :P

Not a problem!

Yes, I guess I should have mentioned in the guide that you shouldn't have any instances of Steam running while applying this. Go through your task manager and kill those steam processes before applying the fix.

In Rocket League, it is still working for me as I only see the default PSYNET avatars for all players.

I also use this modification successfully for UPLAY and Origin clients if you're interested in me writing up how to do those.

Let me know how it goes!

[G-Starrkiller]

Escrito originalmente por PixelTechnician:

Not a problem!

Yes, I guess I should have mentioned in the guide that you shouldn't have any instances of Steam running while applying this. Go through your task manager and kill those steam processes before applying the fix.

In Rocket League, it is still working for me as I only see the default PSYNET avatars for all players.

I also use this modification successfully for UPLAY and Origin clients if you're interested in me writing up how to do those.

Let me know how it goes!

So I tried again yesterday and today.
Unfortunately it seems only to work for the first game. In the next game I can see the players profile pictures again. The same happens if a new player joins a game.

When it's working players only have a question mark as profile pic (as you described in your first post). As far as I know the PSYNET avatar you saw is for players from different platforms e.g. PS4.

I'm definitely interested on using this for Origin and UPlay! :P

[neon/drifter]

Escrito originalmente por G-Starrkiller:

Escrito originalmente por PixelTechnician:

Not a problem!

Yes, I guess I should have mentioned in the guide that you shouldn't have any instances of Steam running while applying this. Go through your task manager and kill those steam processes before applying the fix.

In Rocket League, it is still working for me as I only see the default PSYNET avatars for all players.

I also use this modification successfully for UPLAY and Origin clients if you're interested in me writing up how to do those.

Let me know how it goes!

So I tried again yesterday and today.
Unfortunately it seems only to work for the first game. In the next game I can see the players profile pictures again. The same happens if a new player joins a game.

When it's working players only have a question mark as profile pic (as you described in your first post). As far as I know the PSYNET avatar you saw is for players from different platforms e.g. PS4.

I'm definitely interested on using this for Origin and UPlay! :P

I'm perplexed as to why it would work only on the first go. That suggests that it's refreshing... something in between sessions. But the host file should always remain unchanged. Did you check that? Like, did the host file reset itself somehow after your first session?

I'll give it another test and I'll disable cross play just to make sure I'm only getting PC users in my test.

Anyways, here's what you'll need to add to the host file to have the same benefit on Origin and UPLAY

"IF YOU WANT TO DISABLE PLAYER CREATED PROFILE IMAGES FROM ORIGIN ADD THIS:

0.0.0.0 secure.download.dm.origin.com

IF YOU WANT TO DISABLE PLAYER CREATED PROFILE IMAGES FROM UPLAY ADD THIS:

0.0.0.0 ubisoft-avatars.akamaized.net"

I'm real curious as to why this is having mixed results for you. What version of Windows are you running? I'll post back with my second rocket league test.

[neon/drifter]

Well, I just came back from testing Rocket League with crossplay turned off and dang. I was able to reproduce the issue you had exactly. First match got a question mark, second match had profile pictures.

I'm digging into this because I've got two theories. Either Steam changed the server they hold avatars on, or Psyonix are storing the profile pictures elsewhere because it's a cross platform game? I don't know about that theory but, I'll be doing some experiments today and I'll report back.

Sorry about that!

[neon/drifter]

Oof, I'm really stumped. I just tried a whole bunch of things to get it to work and nothing seemed to change. Which is really weird because my hosts file is successfully blocking traffic in other programs. It's just Steam that it can't seem to touch anymore.

I'm guessing this fell off my radar because I haven't played many multiplayer games on steam that showed peoples PFPs in a while. I apologize and I wish I could help more with this but maybe this could steer you towards someone with more expertise on the matter. If you do find a solution though, I'd love to hear it. Sorry again!

[G-Starrkiller]

No need to apologize! Thank you very much for your effort to try helping me out!

Too bad it doesn't seem to work for Steam anymore, but thanks for also showing how to do it for UPlay and Origin (even though I haven't tried it there yet).

[neon/drifter]

Escrito originalmente por G-Starrkiller:

No need to apologize! Thank you very much for your effort to try helping me out!

Too bad it doesn't seem to work for Steam anymore, but thanks for also showing how to do it for UPlay and Origin (even though I haven't tried it there yet).

Hi there, long time no talk. I'm currently in the middle of giving this another run and I think I've found some luck with putting 0.0.0.0 steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net into the hosts file.

Valve may have just changed where they host the profile pics since I first wrote this. This fix seems like its working in the browser, but I'm now struggling to clean out the steam clients cache to get it to forget all my existing friends profile pictures to test it in the client. I guess I could go ahead and give Rocket League a run but, maybe another time since it's movie night.

Let me know if you've had any luck in the mean time! Take care.

[G-Starrkiller]

I played a few rounds of Rocket League now and it worked perfectly! Awesome!

Thank you for the time and effort you put into this!

[neon/drifter]

Escrito originalmente por G-Starrkiller:

I played a few rounds of Rocket League now and it worked perfectly! Awesome!

Thank you for the time and effort you put into this!

Glad it's working for you! I'm also noticing it's got some side effects for me, they must have paired avatar pics and game album art on the same domain together. Just wondering, does your steam library look blank and imageless as well?

I wish I could find a way to block just this:

steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/avatars

Because that's the direct url all avatars come from. Unfortunately, the methods we're using only block this:

steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/

which is more encompassing than the url and blocks a lot more stuff than necessary. Still, online gameplay is possible with it so... Until then, I'm going to be looking for a better solution. Do let me know if there are any other side effects you're finding, i appreciate the feedback.