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.