Block Ads in AIM 6.0
Anyone uses AIM around here? I finally downloaded the most recent update of their Windows client few days ago. Yes, I know I’m way behind the times, but you probably noticed that I’m not a big IM user these days anyway. It seems that the new incarnation of the AIM became even more bloated and sluggish than it’s predecessor. This another reason why I don’t update these things that often. Each release seems to be slower than the previous one.
The especially annoying “new feature” were the rollover ads. Not sure if this is a new standard, or if I just got he most annoying AOL add in existence served to me. It was an ugly animated flash monstrosity sitting above the buddy list. Every time I moved my mouse over it’s area, a huge advertisement would roll out covering half of my screen, and stay there until I pressed the “close” button in the corner. Ugh… I’m fine with text ads, and I can live with some flashy animation as long as it stays in it’s designated advertising box. But creating “always on top” flash overlays on mouse hover is just downright evil.
Fortunately, there seems to be a really easy way of disabling these things. Apparently all the ads are served from ar.atwola.com. So all you need to do is add the following line to your HOSTS file:
127.0.0.1 ar.atwola.com
You may need sign out and sign back in to see the effect. Surprisingly, this actually made the application more responsive and less sluggish.
Related Posts:
March 16th, 2007 at 12:10 pm (3348) [Quote]
Any way known to get rid of the banner ad at the bottom of MSN’s window?
Posted usingMarch 16th, 2007 at 12:27 pm (3349) [Quote]
Yep - it can be done. You might need to use the ResourceHacker tool to edit the DLL files, because Microsoft started circumventing the HOSTS file in the most recent versions.
Here are some links that might help you:
http://www.matthijs.net/blog/categories/MSN
http://www.sfu.ca/~vwchu/msnadblockv8.html
I haven’t verified that this works, because I don’t really use MSN. But I used ResourceHacker before, and it is a great tool.
Posted usingMarch 17th, 2007 at 11:28 am (3353) [Quote]
Feel the power of GAIM . . . pure open-source power!
Posted usingMarch 17th, 2007 at 4:54 pm (3354) [Quote]
I love Gaim, but it has one drawback - the file transfer feature does not work properly. So I was peer pressured into using the official client.
Posted using