[LEMONS] 8.05.2003
I Hate Ads: How To Turn Off Messenger Spam
I take it for granted that most people know how to get ads off of their systems. But I forget about guys like my dad who have happily been on AOL for years and have little knowledge or interest in how their system works, just as long as it works. For these people, messenger spam is a real problem.Messenger spam is different from traditional pop-up ads in that it is not Web-based. Instead, advertisers use Microsoft's net send utility, Windows Messenger service, to send advertisements directly to your desktop. You don't have to be on the Web at all as long as you are connected to the Internet. Spammers send the same ad to a range or block of IP addresses; if yours happens to be one of them, an ad that looks something like this appears. This is primarily a problem for Windows XP and 2000 users.
The really irksome thing about messenger spam is that it is more or less an extortion racket, as companies like endads.com, fightpopups.com, defeatmessenger.com, and stopmessenger.com barrage users with messenger ads advertising software to turn off messenger ads. Don't pay these weasels a penny; you can do it yourself. I've gotten a few requests for help on this lately, and seen others online, so I thought I would post a fix here here.
Auburn University has a great set of instructions on disabling messenger spam. To turn off messenger spam with XP Home edition, try this
- Click Start->Control Panel
- Click Administrative Tools
- Click Component Services
- Double-click Services Local
- Double-click "Messenger" to bring up the options panel
- Right-click the highlighted line and choose Properties
- Click the STOP button
- Select Disabled or Manual on the Startup Type drop-down menu
- Click OK
- Go get yourself a Mac and quit dealing with this kind of bullshit.1
Alternately, you can download and install Windows XP service pack 1 and then turn on the Internet Connection Firewall (ICF). ICF will automatically block all inbound unicast, multicast, and broadcast traffic. You can also try downloading a commercial firewall application such as Zone Alarm to block your inbound ports. (This isn't a good option for some folks, but they know who they are.)
If you don't already have one, a pop-up blocker does wonders for getting rid of pop-up and pop-under ads. There are lots of free ones out there, I use Pop-Up Stopper by Panic-Ware and it works brilliantly
If you're still having problems with ads, you've probably installed some spyware on your system at some point. Ad-Aware is great program that scans your system and removes spyware. Be sure to read the help file.
1.note: step 10 is probably not endorsed by Auburn. but it should be.
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