Tuesday, February 24, 2009

How to remove the ads from Hotmail / Live Mail (mail.live.com)

This tip will, as of February 2009, remove all advertising from Hotmail and will also remove the right frame that is only used for ads. Even if you already have Adblock Plus installed this is still very useful as Adblock Plus can not remove the right frame.

This method works in Firefox, Flock, Thunderbird, Iceweasel, Opera, and Greasemonkey browsers. This method will not work in Internet Explorer or Safari. (Opera and Greasemoney users can skip straigth to the userstyles.org page to install the style)

Before (left) and after (right) screen shots showing the difference.


If you are using IE or Safari then first you must install a supported browser. I suggest Firefox.

You will also need the plugin called Stylish, which you can install from here:
(Opera and Greasemoney users can skip installing Stylish and go straigth to the userstyles.org page to install the style)

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2108

Once Stylish has installed you have to restart Firefox to activate it. If you are viewing this page with Firefox then don't forget to bookmark this page so you can come back here to complete the instructions.

After you have installed Stylish, you need to install the style sheet here:

http://userstyles.org/styles/15326

simply clicking the button labeled "Load into Stylish" (Opera and Greasemoney users should click the "Load as a user script" button)
You can preview the code before you load it if you like to check what is running on your computer.

Once the new style is installed check out how Hotmail looks. All the ads and the right frame should be gone.

6 comments:

  1. It would help a lot if the leftside column had a reduced font-size and moveable divider.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A Firefox add-on designed exclusively to remove ads from Hotmail and widen the inbox - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/54658/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks! It works great! I needed this since those ads slowed down my netbook! :D

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hello,

    Is there any support for Chrome also.

    Please advise further.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I believe the same addins will also work in chrome

      Delete