AOL has gone too far
I drove up north on the 5 last week back to Marin County. When I got home, I booted up the computer and turned on AIM to see if any of my friends were online. However, right when the program opened, I was greeted with an audio ad. I don’t see ads on AIM because I use DeadAIM. Nevertheless, AIM managed to play the audio ads even though I have ad blocking turned on.
According to AOL, they are going to stop playing ads thirty days after the launch, which started in December. Look for them to cease in January. However, people shouldn’t just sit back and tolerate this aggressive move. AOL is going to start broadcasting audio through AIM on a regular basis and they’re just beta testing right now.
As an AIM user — I really hate to admit that, but too many of my friends use the program — I promise that if AOL keep this audio ad program going, I’m dumping AIM forever. I don’t agree with advertisers that they have a right to advertise on my computer. They don’t own the computer and they don’t own me. I’m going to take every action neccesary to get rid of ads on my computer. I already do it with my web browser and with AIM. I don’t want to see a single ad on my machine, ever.
A lot of people in the weblog community are already pissed off by AOL’s tactics and I am too. This is going too far. Audio is a very intrustive form of advertising, almost as bad as filling the whole screen. At first I thought my parents somehow downloaded a virus because this sound was coming out of nowhere…nothing was running in the Task Manager that looked like spyware. Then I knew it had to be AIM because only AOL would do something that low. They must be stopped.
Thankfully, JDennis.net is working on a fix for DeadAIM. In the meantime, I’m exploring the Windows messenger alternative. Why can’t people just use IRC?
Other people who hate AOL as much as I do:
- JDennis.net Support Forum. “Sound advertisements?“
- Grant Henninger. “Goodbye AIM, and fuck you too.”
- Doug Moore. “AIM Ads with Audio.”
15 comments
Why not use Trillian? I never see ads, and it also supports the ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, and IRC. (Jabber support coming soon, I think.)
Yeah, I used to use Trillian but I switched because it wouldn’t display profiles properly. However, given the current circumstances, I think I just might switch back.
Yeah, Trillian is the way to go. Alot of great features. Connects to tons of services and cuts out all the AIM BS.
Its all written in XML too so its easy to modify the progrom to do diffrent thngs too.
I use dead aim to get rid of the adbox, and I like tabbed IM’s
(to get an older free version of dead aim goto oldversions.com)
To get rid of the audio I edited my c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file
Just open the file with a text editor and add these lines, it will rid you of many things.
127.0.0.1 ar.atwola.com 127.0.0.1 ads.web.aol.com 127.0.0.1 VTOT.proxy.aol.com 127.0.0.1 ads.aol.com
That’ll block any ad that isnt already on your machine.
Also, you can delete viewpoint.exe in your C:\Program Files\AIM\Sysfiles folder. That gets rid of all audio ads.
If you have a router, some allow blocking of websites, just add these to your block list.
ar.atwola.com ads.web.aol.com VTOT.proxy.aol.com ads.aol.com
anyway.
I don’t know where you heard the ads started in December but I switched to Trillian in early October 2003 BECAUSE of the ads playing my computer.
If AOL claims they started in December, then who put those ads on my computer in October? Hmmmm.
Maybe AOL means they started running the ads on YOUR computer in December.
I bet the ads you heard in October was AOL but they didn’t go all out with the audio ads until December. They might have been doing a beta test.
Thank God I finally found out what this was. Jeez. It really ****es me off when I tried to copy sounds onto mp3 players and such and scared the **** out of me. well then. This sucks. a lot. The reason my friends never notice is because 1. they don’t use aim, they use aol (ick) and 2. they don’t turn their speakers on. What types of ads do you have? Normally, I get Dora the Explorer, Jeapordy, and new movies.
I did the host edit mentioned above and it stopped all the ads. Hopefully it works for you as well.
hey , i tried what the guy said doing above to editing your registry and adding those lines… well ill see if another aim sound ad will play on my computer, it really ****es me off too…well if anyone eles did the same thing like what the guy said and had no ads/or no aim sound ads , please reply to this…. let me know if it worked…thanks
p.s. i’m using dead aim 3.2.8 and aol version 5.2.3292 i get no ads , but the aim sound ads still played, so thats why i’m trying to steps above, ok laters.
yea so far i didnt hear any aim ads, anyone eles not having aim ads/ aim sound ads? please reply.. thx laters
Reinstall AIM ver 5.1, which does not have this annoying feature. And do NOT upgrade when it asks you to after that. Good idea these days to keep older versions of ‘upgrades’.
hey, i hear no audio ads but then theres another thing that bothers me, it keeps asking me to upgrade aim, does anyone know how to disable this so that it wont ask me like a freakin billion times to upgrade , god its annoying! thx, laters
Thanx for the tips it seems to be working. I run Trillian but it never hurts to add some security to my machine, even if it is just a messaging service. Special thanx to Anonymous for supplying the info
I use gaim. It’s a pretty good alternative to the deadAIM/AIM combo. (spell check, tabbed windows, transparency, etc.)
Gaim is pretty good? It’s the best.