Make Windows 8 ad-free?

[Martog]

Erm probably by removing large chunks of code and replacing it with pretty basic/simple equivilents that makes not an incredly different from W7.

98/2000 -> XP was a BIG jump.

XP -> Vista was a big jump, it was done very poorly like tried to cram too much in instead of spacing it out

Vista -> 7 wasn't a huge jump, it added quite a bit and fixed all the vista problems

7 -> 8 not much in it, loads of code removed, some 'apps' added and a new start screen with slight update to WDDM. Which probably explains why a it's cheap upgrade.

Actually 95/98/ME to XP was a monumental jump due to ditching the 9x codebase, compared to 2000 to XP, which was still big, but not as big as the 9x as XP is the successor to 2000 as far as codebase goes

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

The 'Microsoft MVP Hosts File' is maintained by winhelp2002, who was a Microsoft MVP for thirteen years. Chances are, if Microsoft felt there was some danger in it, they would not have kept re-awarding him.

Keep in mind that the hosts file is text file, and can easily be viewed in Notepad or some other text editor. Also, you can always make a backup copy of your own hosts file before substituting or appending this one to it.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

P.S. Potential bias alert: I am a Microsoft MVP, too.

Because free apps make money that way..

Is it safe to use? I mean yeah, you just replace your Windows hosts file with theirs and make your PC completely ad-free.

But, have they blacklisted anything except from ads?

[Ryoken]

Hello,

The 'Microsoft MVP Hosts File' is maintained by winhelp2002, who was a Microsoft MVP for thirteen years. Chances are, if Microsoft felt there was some danger in it, they would not have kept re-awarding him.

Keep in mind that the hosts file is text file, and can easily be viewed in Notepad or some other text editor. Also, you can always make a backup copy of your own hosts file before substituting or appending this one to it.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

P.S. Potential bias alert: I am a Microsoft MVP, too.

Well it used to block most ads in MS products I used before, like Messenger..

In anycase, find out the adserver and then add it to the hostfile yourself..

[jakem1]

Yeah, there's so many. Look at all these ads. http://imgur.com/PT2Fn

Lol. One ad is "full of ads".

That's not the only ad in the Music app. It also plays audio/video ads while streaming music which would maybe be acceptable if it worked properly. Unfortunately I've had ads interrupt my music when I'm playing it from my own library because, for some unknown reason, it thinks it should be playing some songs from the cloud.

[Seketh]

Do ads still come up while streaming music if you actually pay for Xbox Music?

[jasonon]

I found that most in app ads stay out of the way and don't really detract from the overall experience. I think they chose to put in ads since they made the retail sticker so cheap this time around.

[Order_66]

Makes me wonder if this whole "metro" abomination is actually Ballmer/microsofts answer to their failed "windows as a subscription" scheme.

"if we can't ream them with absurd subscription fees we'll rape them with ads!!!"