Block, Hide and Remove Windows Live Mail Ads

Windows Live Mail (WLM) is a replacement web-based email service for MSN Hotmail by Microsoft and used to have code-name of Kahuna under the brand of Windows Live. It has feature sets that able to compete with trend setter Gmail, with 2GB storage space, interactive user interface built with AJAX technology, and of course, a lot of advertisements especially banner ads. Previously Windows Live Mail places extended rectangle ad format on Today page, big leaderboard banner ad on top of the page, plus skyscrapper ad to the right of your inbox, although the skyscrapper ad has been removed. How a simple you can hide, block or remove those banner ads from appearing or displaying on your screen.

1. We need to edit hosts file of your system, which can be edit by using GUI text editor or from command prompt:

   From Windows Explorer or My Computer:

   1. Navigate to the following folder:

      \Windows\System32\drivers\etc

   2. Locate hosts file, and right click on hosts file. And then select Open.
   3. When prompted with Open With dialog to choose a program you want to use to open this file, select Notepad, Wordpad or any text editor.

   From command prompt:

   1. Click on Start -> Run, and type Cmd then press Enter.
   2. Type the following command to change directory, press Enter key after typing:

      cd \Windows\System32\drivers\etc

   3. Type the following command in command prompt to edit the host file, press Enter key when done:

      edit hosts

2. You should see the text contains at least one line as below:

   127.0.0.1 localhost

   Go to the after the line or end of the file, and add in the following lines:

   
127.0.0.1 view.atdmt.com
127.0.0.1 rad.live.com


   Above statements will cause the HTML or JavaScript used to call the ads unable to reach these 2 ads servers or engines, which are mainly used to serve the ads to WLM.

3. Save the file when done editing.
4. Restart the web browsing.

With these trick, whenever you login to Windows Live Mail, you will not see any ads, the ads will be replaced with an webpage cannot be found (404) error page instead, as if the banner advertisements have been blocked, hidden, removed, or disabled. The bad point of the trick is that it is unable to claim back or recover the screen viewing area or real estate that been taken up by the ads.

Windows Live Mail after ads have been blocked and removed

If you’re using Firefox web browser with Greasemonkey extension as add-on (if you don’t, you must install the extension to use the below hack scripts), you can use the following script to remove and hide the ads in Windows Live Mail.

There are several scripts for Greasemonkey extension that can block the ads on Windows Live Mail. Most of them remove the ads by hiding the iFrame the loads the ads.

1. Windows Live Mail AD Hider – will also remove the Calendar iFrame, which mean no Calendar functionality.
2. Windows Live Mail AD Hider With Calendar – Enhanced and updated script of the above script to keep the Calendar in WLM.
3. WLM AdRemover

To use the above script go to the download page, click on “Install this Script”, then go to Firefox browser, and click on Tools -> Install User Script in your Firefox menu. Then just click OK and the script is installed.