A little while back, Microsoft started placing advertisements in to the Skype application. I understand that Skype is, for the most part, a free application that extended to the public because of the advertisements that can be placed into it.
The thing I didn’t like about the advertisements, as I understand it, is that Microsoft is essentially eavesdropping on your conversation to try to figure out what kind of advertisements they should incorporate into Skype why you’re trying to use it.
Over the past couple of months, when I go to use Skype, the home screen automatically displays an advertisement and as I’m connecting to the other party I get see another advertisement. And obviously, it’s not paying enough attention to figure out what I like or what I don’t like. To me, untargeted ads are a complete waste of time, but I hate eavesdropping more than that.
Important!
I posted another article on how to further remove ads from Skype here:
http://www.lehsys.com/2013/07/how-to-remove-ads-from-skype-part-2/
Recognizing some people may have a complete hatred advertising in any form there are some options for removing advertising from Skype.
First off, if you’re using Skype with Linux you shouldn’t be having a problem with advertising, but if you’re using a Windows-based PC, there’s a few options for removing the advertisements.
Check the Skype settings
Skype does have some limited settings for adjusting the targeted ads that it feeds. If you open Skype, go into tools and options, there’s a selection for privacy settings; you can deselect the option at the bottom to allow Microsoft targeted ads.
And under tools and options, you can choose the option for alerts and messages and deselect the option for promotions.
Use Peerblock
Peerblock is a great application that runs in your system tray and it blocks advertising networks and questionable connections throughout the Internet and blogs those on your computer. Peerblock’s original use was to try to protect peer-to-peer users from connecting to bogus connections, but it works great to make sure that your computer doesn’t receive a lot of advertising connections; like the ones Skype uses.
I used to think that going into my hosts file on my computer would be a good way to manage blocking advertisement websites, but I found that peerblock worked much better because it was updated more often, and I could enable and disable blocking advertising networks simply by right clicking on the system tray.
After you load the application and it’s up and running, you’ll have to restart Skype, but when you restart Skype the advertisements that normally pop-up will be gone.
Download a older Skype version
Skype may the modifications with adding advertisements to the application with version 5. You can still get older versions of Skype and install those on your PC.
Here’s a link to the last version of Skype before version 5.
http://www.oldversion.com/windows/skype-4-2-0-187
Notice
http://www.oldapps.com/skype.php?old_skype=93
Thank goodness for Oldapps.com.
Again, I understand that applications need to generate some sort of revenue to stay positive on ledger, but I also know that some people absolutely hate advertisements.
I hope this helps…
Thank you, Larry Henry Jr. LEHSYS.com
…via Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12
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- Experts Warn About Bogus Skype Websites That Ask Money for Free Software (news.softpedia.com)
- Skype launches direct carrier billing in Russia, soon will bring it to U.S. (fiercewireless.com)
- Office 365 vs Google Apps: Is Microsoft trying to be like Google? (z6mag.com)
- Skype For Mac: Video Call All Your Friends, Apple-Style [Mac] (makeuseof.com)
- Skype For iPhone Gets Automatic Dropped Call Recovery And Emergency Call Redirection (macgasm.net)
- Who Does Skype Let Spy? (schneier.com)