MySpace has become somewhat of a social phenomenon, much to the surprise of many people. While the advantages to the site are great, including the ability to easily network with existing acquaintances, meet new friends, share experiences, content and music many people (including yours truly) feel that the design of the site is definitely lacking. Because of the somewhat bland design of the site many sites (like ours) have sprung up across the Internet offering ways to tweak user’s home pages and make them far more interesting (Visit the layouts section if you want to give you profile a facelift). One complaint that continues to arise; however, is the presence of the ads at the top of the MySpace pages. Many users feel that not only is the ad unattractive and distracting but that it also causes pages to load far slower than they should.

 

Customization is definitely something that all users should look into, primarily because it is so easy to personalize one’s page and really make it say something about their unique personality. For the most part, MySpace allows you to do this with very few restrictions. It is important to be aware; however, that there ARE some restrictions on exactly what you can do to your page on MySpace without running into violation problems with the site’s TOS. Of course, not many people bother to read the Terms of Use policy, at least not word for word, when they sign up for their profile page and as a result they may be unaware of some of the restrictions in place or the consequences for violating those restrictions. MySpace primarily has installed these ads, much like many sites do, in order to provide revenue from the advertisements. For sites that are not user supported, through subscription fees or any other kind of revenue income, ad revenue can be extremely important in ensuring the site is able to continue running as well as, of course, net the owners a bottom line profit.

If you are determined to remove the top ad on MySpace, whether it is for aesthetic purposes or simply to make pages load faster, it is important to understand that this does violate MySpace’s TOS . If you are caught doing it, and there is a chance that you could be caught, you run the risk of having your page removed and most likely being banned from the site.

Now that all of that has been said, if you are still of a mind to remove the top ad from your page, here is how you can go about it... without violating the Myspace Terms of Service.

There are a number of ad blockers available on the net, some of them that are specific to MySpace; however, many people feel that Adblock is currently the best choice. This program can be configured to block MySpace ads. First, you will need to install the program, which is available here - The program from this site can also be used for sites other than MySpace. After you have installed the program you will then need to save MySpace ad filters as a text file on the hard drive of your computer. It is important to be aware that the following list may become incomplete if MySpace adds new advertisers.

Copy and paste this list of advertisers into your Adblock Filters list:

http://*.revsci.*
http://*.advertising.com/*
http://*.casalemedia.com/*
http://*.trafficmp.com/*
http://*.zanox.com/*
http://banners.netcraft.com/ads/*
http://clicktorrent.info/phpAdsNew/*
http://banners.ebay.com/*
http://us.ebayobjects.com/1ai/*
http://*.amateurmatch.com/pic*
http://*.datinggold.com/*
http://ads.amateurmatch.com/iframe*
http://62.212.84.25/*
http://de*.myspace.com/*
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/Ads/*
http://mads.zdnet.com/m*
http://mm.chitika.net/*
http://*.kontera.com/*
http://*.googlesyndication.com/*
http://*.2mdn.net/*
http://themis.geocities.yahoo.com/*
http://geocities.yahoo.com/get_ad.php*
http://www.google.com/images/promo*
http://*.valencemedia.com/*
http://*.bullz-eye.com/*
http://*.yieldmanager.com/iframe*
http://*.atdmt.com/*
http://*.cpxinteractive.com/*
http://*.usacasino.com/*
http://*.adintensity.com/*
http://*.yieldmanager.com/*
http://*.firstadsolution.com/*
http://*.fmpub.net/*
http://*.burstnet.com/*
http://*.streamray.com/*
http://iframe.adultfriendfinder.com/*
http://*.isohunt.com/banners*
http://*.overture.com/*
http://isohunt.com/js/iframe*
http://*.isohunt.com/banners/*
http://*.adultfriendfinder.com/*
http://*.eyewonder.com/*
http://*.tracking101.com/*
http://*.torrentsearchx.com/*
http://*.finestresults.com/*
http://*.clicksor.com/*
http://*.crispads.com/*
https://*.falkag.net/*
http://*.doubleclick.net/*
http://*.bluestreak.com/*
http://x.myspace.com/images/blog/blogLogo.gif
http://*.myspace.com/html.ng/*&position=banner*
http://*.targetpoint.com/*

After you have saved the filters they should then be imported into Adblock. To do this, hit CTRL-SHIFT-P. This will bring up the Adblock window. Now, click the Options button and then Import Filters. Now you should select the filters text file that were saved. Note, if you don't want to bother with updating the filter list manually, you can always try the automatic updater (Adblocker Companion) available here.