Hacking AIM
Alright, to start off with, for most massive commercial deals like AIM, some bright script kiddie has already come up with the clever idea of making a clone with better performance, and no advertisements. When researching for this node, in fact, before I even started looking, I was starring at the word "AIMM", placed squarely in the center of the resexcellence home page. AIMM looks like a pretty good AIM clone, so if you're a Mac user looking to solve this problem the easy way check it out here:
http://mac.emuscene.com/aimm/
You can, of course, find other clones; the same goes for those Windows users also tired of seeing banners. Just go onto google and do a search for "AIM Clone". I'm not even going to say anything to you Linux users, you should just know better.
So anyway, I found a hack for getting rid of the adds, or should I say hacks, including a smattering of other ones. The original patch, for AIM versions 4.1 and lower can be found here:
http://jove.prohosting.com/~ieskins/other/AIM/AIM4.1AdHack.sit
The instructions to get it to work should be included in the stuffit file.
There are revised instructions to get it to work for 4.2.xxxx (that should be the newer version) which can be found at www.resexcellence.com, along with 5 different skin make-overs and find command replacements. For the sake of the archive, I will reprint the instructions here (originally posted by Chris Johnson):
BEFORE patching, open the AIM application in ResEdit, open the VERS resource, and edit the first resource ID (ID=1). At the top, there are 3 text boxes, with the numbers "4", "2", "0" in that order. Change the middle box from "2" to "1", save and quit, and run the patch, which will now work successfully.
Hopefully that should help any troubled by the subject. As a side note, AOL's crack team of lawyers are pretty good about these sorts of things down, so there is no telling how long those links will be fresh. Also, I trust that this node will be silenced by the E2 Nuke Request should things get out of hand. Happy Hacking!