Disable and Remove Ads from Yahoo Messenger

There are so many ways to remove these ads. I will suggest couple of them.

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Yahoo Messenger 9, follow these steps:

1. Run Registry Editor (regedit.exe).
2. Navigate to the following registry key:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Yahoo\pager\Locale

3. In the right pane, locate a value named Enable Messenger Ad with default value as 1. Set the value to 0.
4. Restart Yahoo! Messenger 9.0.

The ads will be disappeared from Yahoo Messenger after restarting.

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Please note that if you run Yahoo Messenger from a FAT32 disk, this fix disables some features from Yahoo Messenger, like chat rooms and the plug-in manager. NTFS is the standard file system used in Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, so it's likely that you won't see these limitations if you use a recent version of windows.

Close Yahoo Messenger.
Create .bat file from below code, that edits most registry values related to the ads in Yahoo Messenger from HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ Yahoo\pager\YUrl, replacing the data with a dummy asterisk. Here's the list of string values:

Messenger Ad
Webcam Upload Ad
Webcam Viewer Ad
Webcam Viewer Ad Big
Webcam Viewer Ad Medium
Change Room Banner
Conf Adurl
Chat Adurl

bat file..

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@ECHO OFF TITLE Remove ads from Yahoo Messenger 8-9  ATTRIB -R "%PROGRAMFILES%\Yahoo!\Messenger\Cache\urls.xml" ECHO "" >"%PROGRAMFILES%\Yahoo!\Messenger\Cache\urls.xml"  ATTRIB +R "%PROGRAMFILES%\Yahoo!\Messenger\Cache\urls.xml" cacls "%PROGRAMFILES%\Yahoo!\Messenger\Cache\urls.xml" /E /P  %username%:N  SET CONTENTPATH="" IF ERRORLEVEL 1 SET CONTENTPATH="*"  > %TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO REGEDIT4 >>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO. >>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Yahoo\Pager\YUrl] >>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Messenger Ad"="*" >>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Webcam Upload Ad"="*" >>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Webcam Viewer Ad"="*" >>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Webcam Viewer Ad Big"="*" >>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Webcam Viewer Ad Medium"="*" >>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Change Room Banner"="*" >>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Conf Adurl"="*" >>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Chat Adurl"="*" >>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Y Content"=%CONTENTPATH% >>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Yahoo\Pager\Locale] >>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Enable Messenger Ad"="0" REGEDIT /S %TEMP%.\noYMads.reg DEL %TEMP%.\noYMads.reg 

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The patch also makes the file C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Cache\urls.xml read-only and it revokes all the permissions for the file, but only for NTFS disks.

If you install new versions of Yahoo Messenger, you'll have to repeat the steps above, as Yahoo setup rewrites the registry entries. New versions will most likely make removing the ads more difficult or even impossible.

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Block Ads By Blocking the Ad Server:

1. Open Notepad.
(In Vista/Win7, Run Notepad as an Administrator)

2. Open the following file:
C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

3. Add the following line at the end of the text file:

127.0.0.1 insider.msg.yahoo.com



What to do if Yahoo Changes Their Ad Server

I tested this since Yahoo Messenger 9.0.0.922 BETA. It worked.

This is because all ads come from "http://insider.msg.yahoo.com", which is the Ad Server.

Now, when you notice the ads coming back, it means Yahoo changed their Ad Server. To block them again:

1. Explore C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Cache\

2. Open urls.xml

3. Internet Explorer will display the XML file.
From there you can see lines similar to these:

href=\"http://insider.msg.yahoo.com/client_ad.php?p=409640\" id="Messenger Ad"
href=\"http://insider.msg.yahoo.com/client_ad.php?p=81920\" id="Messenger Idle Ad"

In this case, the Ad Server Address is "insider.msg.yahoo.com"
If it's not, copy the new Ad Server Address,
and update the "hosts" file.

Automatically Download Files From Rapidshare In Firefox

Users who download regularly from the popular file host Rapidshare usually use a download manager like JDownloader or Cryptload to do so. These download managers provide several benefits over downloading files from Rapidshare in a web browser like Firefox or Internet Explorer. The most important benefit being the ability to queue an unlimited number of files in the Rapidshare Download Manager which are then download sequentially without further user interaction.

Rapidshare AutoWait is a userscript that can be loaded in the Firefox Greasemonkey extension. It brings most of the benefit that is provided by download managers to the web browser. In short: It allows a user to open multiple Rapidshare links which get then downloaded sequentially without user interaction.

The script will automatically perform all required actions on the page after it has been opened in Firefox. It will also detect if a download is already in progress to loop the other Rapidshare downloads which are then started at a later time.

The script does detect network problems and handles other possible errors like expired sessions or the 15 minute limits as well. It is not a problem for the script to handle 10, 20 or even 30 tabs that all point to a file on the Rapidshare website. The only step that the script will not do is to close the tab once the download has been finished which is not that much of a problem though.

AutoWait is a very interesting option for users who download files regularly from Rapidshare. Check out our Rapidshare Search article for pointers on how to find links at the the file host. It is possible that the script will also work in other web browsers that provide userscript support such as Opera or Safari.