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How to get rid of those banners on ICQ messages!

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techg7,

I have been looking into that problem with the banner box, Unfortunatly all i have found so far is that you need to edid some Files. I dont have the banners so i cant dissasemble/debug the files to find out. I have some friends on newsgroups looking into it. as soon as we find what files and what code needs changed i will post it.
You should at least dissabe auto update in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mirabilis\ICQ\DefaultPrefs\ change the auto update value to "no" - at least that way you will not get anymore forced ICQ ERRRRRRR AOL updates (i always thought AOL was CRAP, Prolly why i never used it)
 
i tired what you said massmhz, but it didnt work, and there is no partner file in the icq dir....
this is how it works though, it downloads all the ate stuff as soon as you start icq for the first time. i get a message that says "soemhting lists and websearch something updated from server" i bet you it downloads all that crap at the same time, even when auto-update is set to no in the registry. im so sick of this ill probably stop using icq unless i can fix this soon

nothing works...ive been deleting and editing everything. i noticed this too...if you delete the AteBrowser folder in the icq dir, then start icq, its created again instantly

one more HUGE thing ive found....if you delete ICQAteB.ocx, icq runs but you cant send messages. if there was some way to edit the file....to get rid of the AteBroswer part....

this a line from it (the only readable one):
HTTP://  **ICQCLIENT** http:// _localfile _local _new SIZEY= SIZEX= CAPTION= ~ OPEN= **ATE**  icqate32.dll file: <BODY><TABLE BGCOLOR=&quot;#FFE7BD&quot; WIDTH=&quot;%d&quot; HEIGHT=&quot;%d&quot; VALIGN=&quot;CENTER&quot; BORDER=&quot;0&quot;><TR><TD ALIGN=&quot;CENTER&quot;><IMG SRC=&quot;%s&quot;></TD></TR></TABLE></BODY> ICQHeight= ICQWidth= %RAND% %05d The Page Failed to Load.

there are a few other references to AteBrowser in there...

maybe there's a way to edit it? notice the **ATE** and table and img tags....

does anybody know what language it might be written in? maybe we can disassemble it and edit it
 
I'm running 2000b. I did the partner.xml deal and deleted (actually renamed) the three .dll files. ICQ will not close down back to the netdetect icon in the systray properly.

It goes back to the red flower and every ten seconds or so, the petals rotate green like it's trying to establish a connection. I'm on dial-up.

I just put everything back as it was for now. I sure appreciate the efforts of everyone here. I'll be watching this thread for more info.
 
I think ICQ did the add thing to make money with out charging for service that you getting for nothing.It,s not unresonable for them to ask you to look at a couple of banners,I hate them also I been with ICQ from the start.AOL took over and crap came to the surface,But they did pay millions for the rights to do what they want.You lucky you have people in here that can help you take some of the banners off your mind 🙂.
 
Tech, you'll find the websearch and lists thing referenced in the registry under the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mirabilis\ICQ\DefaultPrefs\DataFiles

Try moving your attention to *.fld files that ICQ has, like &quot;Banner.fld&quot;, for instance. It's referenced in that registry key, but does not exist on my system...and I have NO banners, either. Now, if you have that file, try moving it out of your ICQ folder. Play with some of the other *.fld files, too. Here's my list of *.fld files:

All of these files are in the C:\Program Files\ICQ\DataFiles folder:

datafiles.fld
partner.fld
Interest.fld
LDAP.fld
plugin.fld
providers.fld
WebSearch.fld

I have NO other *.fld files. I'm assuming &quot;fld&quot; refers to &quot;field&quot;, meaning the space on the ICQ program the info resides on. See if you have a banner.fld file. If you have ANY other .fld files, I'd try moving them out of your DataFiles folder and see what happens. (Shut down ICQ and restart it...then I'd try rebooting and restarting Windows/ICQ).
 
I did as i said above,after the SMS crap showed up,and haven't had anything new show up since.........can't explain it
 
this should explain everything.
first, my letter to icq tech support:

I've been using ICQ for years, and 2000a for quite some time now. Just
today, banner ads for various things on the ICQ homepage started appearing
at the bottom of ever message dialoge I send or receive. Why are they there?
Can I get rid of them? Otherwise, I wont be using ICQ anymore. Here's some
proof for you:
http://www.powerlink.net/acamarata/icqwtf.gif
Thanks for your time.

now, their reply:

Dear ICQ user,
Thank you for your recent email, your feedback is important to us.

At ICQ, we're always trying to offer new and exciting features that further
extend the positive experience for the ICQ community. In doing so, we
recently introduced an informational banner on the instant message screens
that showcases tips, new features and content that can enhance the ICQ
experience.

NOTE: These banners are an integral part of the ICQ software. No alterations
were made to the ICQ version installed on your computer.

By clicking on one of these banners, we hope an ICQ user will explore new
areas on ICQ and conveniently find services that are useful in their daily
lives. The banners also offer one-click access to the ICQ homepage to make
it easier for users to return to our website. We hope these banners will
help our users get the most out of their ICQ experience and the time they
spend online.

Thank you.


thats it my friends....

and by the way, i still havent gotten rid of them. please keep this thread updated



 
Did you try, from slikster's post, looking for the banner.fld file and deleting it? just curious if this worked or not.
I do not not have a banner.fld file yet it is referenced in the registry.
I also have never seen a banner in the main message window.
 
SonofZeuz, I found an old archived alt.icq post where some guy said the way to get rid of the ICQAteBrowser addition to message windows on ICQ was to hack the file &quot;ICQAteB.ocx&quot;. Of course, the person who posted it said the successful hack wouldn't be made public because of fears of AOL backlash.

A hex editor I have certainly shows that this is a main ICQAteBrowser control file, but I'm no programmer and don't know what exactly to hack.

I did find something interesting just now in my c:\Program Files\ICQ\AteBrowser\(my icq #)\ folder:

A cookies.dat file. Using Notepad, I could see that there is a string in there labled Persistent Cookie, and sure enough, it points directly to ads.icq.com.
 
Slikkster
Perhaps someone with the banners showing could send that file (or post it somewhere) so we could compare the banner one with a non banner one like mine. I'm sure that comparing the two files should show something, i can also dissasemble/debug the file.
I would really like to get this solved, there are many people on the icq newsgroups looking for the same answers.

We could also have techg7 replace his file with one from someone without the banners, This could be tried with different suspicious files. This could prove witch is the culprit file. Just a thought.

Also those files in c:\Program Files\ICQ\AteBrowser\(my icq #)\ folder can be deleted but they will show up again.
I have an entry in my hosts file that blocks all access to ads.icq.com
 
But I'm still not convinced it's a file because Tech said he uninstalled then reinstalled and still had the same problems. Uninstalling completely and then reinstalling should have wiped out any vestige of a modified file. He said he went through the registry, too, and got rid of all his entries relating to ICQ.

I'd like to see Techg7 do a complete and NEW install on a second machine, using his username/password. I'd like to see what would happen then...in other words, I'm wondering if ICQ's main database of users has numbers flagged as to who's gotten the ads and who hasn't.
Why is it that only some people have gotten this, and it hasn't been a system-wide rollout?
This has been going on since last summer.

Otherwise, the only thing I could see doing is comparing a known install of the SAME version of ICQ with one that has the banners and see what's different, file by file, registry entry by registry entry.

Right now, it's looking like Push Technology at work, and only for certain users.
 
I'm glad I'm not the only one who's getting seriously annoyed by these ads. I have the same ads popping up on all message windows. Here's what I've tried so far:

Had 2000a installed originally on Win2k and 98SE. Got the ads sometime in the past week, and after seeing they had no intention of leaving, got ticked off and left ICQ for a while. Then I see this thread and start tinkering.

First try - removing 2000a and installing 99b, and attempting to run the database converter. After getting dbconvert to see the 2000a databases, it spent a while working on it and seemed to reindex the database just fine (found all users, found correct number of records, etc). BUT - 99b crashes with a Visual C DLL error dialog at startup with this converted database. No go, but there's potential here if somebody can figure out what it is about this converted database that 99b crashes about. So close, the database was converted, but....

Second try - reinstalled 2000a, got databases back up and running, and then deleted the three ad DLL's, blanked out partner.xml, changed the two registry keys for Transaction set to &quot;No&quot;, and set AutoUpdate to &quot;No&quot;. This was all done with a disabled network connection. I ended up with the grey background ad box and the ATEBROWSER message. Better than having ads, but still not there.

Third try - by this time the registry was getting pretty congested with different ICQ versions being tossed around (at one point I brought 98a back from the dead to see what it could do). So, I cleaned off a drive and installed a fresh copy of 98SE. With connection disabled, I installed 2000a, did the registry corrections, and found none of the ad DLL's in the directory to delete. Also, no partner.xml file to blank out, presumably because ICQ hasn't been &quot;upgraded&quot; yet. I signed up with a new test account to try to eliminate the ads being tied to my database files. No go. Ads were back. Reinstalled database files, and ads are back there, as well. What's worse, there are none of the ad DLL's to delete, and so for now apparently I'm stuck with the ads. The temporary solution is placing all message windows so they pop up at the bottom of the screen with the ad space hidden behind the task bar. This is working surprisingly well, so I'm fine with using the software for now, but we still need a permanent fix that gets rid of the ad box.

The OCX file seems to be key, because of the ATEBROWSER references and HTML code present in the file. This OCX file was present in all of the installations, at least. Also note that the SMS message was trivial to get rid of compared to the ad boxes.

One last interesting thing...after finally finding a clean way of getting rid of the ads and ad spaces in AIM, I saw files that had similar names as the ad DLL's as ICQ. The ad remover got rid of these files, so I'd have to reinstall AIM to make sure, but at least two of the DLLs were the same (the res DLL was not present). Unsurprising of course because it's all AOL, but this also means whatever exploits were used with AIM can be used on ICQ as well. Search Google for &quot;AIM ad remover&quot; for some of the ad removers available.
 
God I must've been tired last night...of course the DLL's are still present in the third try from above, I completely forgot to reenable show all files. Deleted the three and I'm back to ICQAteBrowser Version 1.0 and a grey box.

The following files were present in the AIM directory:

ate32.dll
ateima32.dll

So we see a unifying theme between the two programs. My copy of ICQAteB.ocx is also available for downloading.

Has anyone else tried downconverting their database to 99b? What kinds of errors do you get?

(Editing for grammar)
 
I recomend also deleting the atebrowser folder, mine was over a meg, it has all the freakin ads cache'd in there...annoying aren't they.
 
this definately sucks. slikkster, it just so happens that my new laptop just arrived today, ill try a new install on that with a new icq #, and see what happens. factory-direct laptop, you dont get much more fresh than that
 
taligent,
I just replaced my ICQAteB.ocx file with yours and there are NO banners on the send/recieve window.This leads me to believe that that file is not the cause of the banners.
 
Unfortunately the earlier speculation seems to be correct, it's all server-push at work. I installed Win2k on the same machine for a clean setup and installed 2000a into a new directory to keep it clean. Got rid of all files, registry entries, added ads.icq.com to the hosts file pointed at 127.0.0.1, and read-only protected the entire ICQ directory. Then, I reconnected to the network and signed up a new account. At first I was ecstatic, there was no ad box, period! However, after a few messages the ad box came back, but greyed out since the DLL's were missing.

At this point I'm thinking the workaround is going to be modifying the message window itself as the patches for AIM work (make the dimensions of the ad box 0x0 or something). Another quasi-acceptable solution is to insert our own code for the ATEBrowser and make the box all black, or insert custom graphics, etc.

What else can we try? I really want to get rid of this extra junk...I'm even thinking about using the AIM-like message mode, even though it too is annoying for quick messages that I just want to shoot off.

*sigh*
 
this really does suck doesnt it. i think we need to dissasemble whatever controls the atebrowser and like you said, edit it so it doesnt appear anymore...ive been using the aim type message mode too, that doesnt drive me mental as much as looking at the banners does
 
Doh! I just noticed I have an ad banner on my &quot;Send File&quot; dialog boxes (haven't used it in awhile). No ads on main message windows. It's like a plague...like a cancer on the presidency. Whoops...wait, that was something else.
 
hahahahahahahaha!

anyway...so the banners of death take another victim. ...we must put a stop to this! (its like a bad grade b movie)
 
i got rid of the ad but now i have the gray space with ICQAteBrowser Version 1.0...

how do i get rid of that?
 
umm. i don't really remember what i just did, but here goes.

deleted cookies and cache from the atebrowser dir and made it read-only..
deleted the files in the partner dir and made it read-only..

i think the partner dir is what makes the sms on the icq window.. the weird thing is, after deleting the files in the partner dir, opened up icq, no sms.. closed it, open it up again, and there's sms and the files went right back into the partner dir, which i set to read-only.. i deleted it once again, and opened up icq, no sms.. closed it.. opened it up again.. and still no sms and no files in the partner dir.. weird..

i also have the auto-update in the registry set to No.. dunno if that matters..
also.. under hkey_current_user\software\mirabilis\icq\defaultprefs\updatedfiles\partner, i set transaction to NO..

right now.. i have no more sms in the icq window.. but still have that banner in the file xfer window (altho i hardly use it).. will work on that.. if the files in the partner dir keeps coming back up, i might just write a batch file to delete it.. but we'll see..

 
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