I have no problem with AOL putting advertisements into their instant messaging client to keep it free. They have a right to try to recover some of the lost funds involved in developing the client. However, they have engaged in a number of practices, the most recent of which has pushed me over the edge. When I sent a friend an IM, a pop-up window showed up. At first I figured I had some spyware, then I noticed that the pop-up was an ad for the same thing that was in the little ad-window. AIM is now pusing pop-ups? That is disgusting. That is intolerable. The video ads were bothersome enough, but they have gone too far.

So I looked into ways of removing the ads. Would you believe there is a program that will actually remove them althogether. It does not hide them, or use some gimmick – it patches the executable to remove the ads. It is the AIM Ad Hack, and it works with the most current version of aim.

You can see the program’s website here: http://aftermath.dyndns.org:8888/~aimadhack/

I have mirrored version 3.67, for use with AIM 5.9.3690 at my site.

You can download it here:AIM Ad Hack 3.67.exe

If AOL repents and removes the ability for advertisers to bully us around, then I will gladly cease supporting this program, but until then I encourage everybody to use this program.