[Jon8RFC]

Make sure that AIM is completely exited. Don't just sign off, you need to exit AIM completely. Either click on the buddylist on AIM menu>exit AIM, or right-click on the icon on the bottom-right in the system tray on "exit AIM". You'll need to browse your way to the C:\ locations listed below.
(Not all steps for the buddylist are necessary to remove the ads and ad space; since earlier, older versions of AIM6 & Triton needed them, I'm listing all steps as a whole to cover EVERY version of AIM6 & Triton...new and old--do them all to ensure proper ad-removal. If you can't make one of the changes because you can't find it, that's ok--it is meant for a different version of AIM.)

For the buddy list ads:

C:\Program Files\AIM6\services\imApp\veryour_version\content\bl\aolBuddyListAd.js
Open up this file in notepad, hit ctrl+f, and search for adcontainer. The first result is the one you want to change--change collapsed=false to collapsed=true.
Save and close the file.

C:\Program Files\AIM6\services\imApp\veryour_version\content\bl\bl.js
Open up this file in notepad, hit ctrl+f, and search for ("adContainer").collapsed = false;. The first, and only, result is the one you want to change--change collapsed = false to collapsed = true.
Save and close the file. Fire up AIM to see if the ads are gone; if not, do the final step below.

These are mostly for older versions of AIM6 & Triton:
C:\Program Files\AIM6\services\imApp\veryour_version\resources\en-US\strings.xml
Open up this file in notepad, hit ctrl+f and search for bl.aimadrotateinterval. Make the four lines look like this:
<string name="bl.AimAdRotateInterval">0</string>
<string name="bl.adHeight">0</string>
<string name="bl.adWidth">0</string>
<string name="bl.adUrlFormat"></string>
Then search for bl.admagic and remove the numbers to make it look like this:
<string name="bl.adMagic">0</string>
Save and close the file.

That's it for the buddy list!


For the buddy info window ads:

As of June 26, 2008 AIM AdHack 5.55 removes the profile ads in a very ugly way. I won't be surprised if my method is incorporated in a future version of that program:

C:\Program Files\AIM6\services\imApp\veryour_version\content\bl\buddyProfile.js
Open up this file in notepad, hit ctrl+f, and search for onHTMLProfileComplete = function. Change (piSession, piSource, prop, hr, vData) to look like (piSession, piSource, prop,vData). Remove the , hr which is HTML for "horizontal rule". It's nice and clean, but removes the three tabs within the profile window.