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Having fun with Netzero By _Sli-p\_ Release Date: Wednesday, August 17, 1999 Introduction: This text-file deals with taking full advantage of Netzero. Basic background info on Netzero: Netzero is a free dial-up ISP. There are local access numbers in every major city in the United States. In exchange for free net access and POP email they require that you display a standard size ad on your screen. There is no way to move the ad window off of the screen or hide it behind other applications. To dial up you access a local Netzero java applet at which point you enter your nick and pass. You then are connected with Netzero's dial-up server. Once a connection is established, an application called Zcast is launched. Zcast's job is to: 1) put the ad banner on your screen, 2) every 30 seconds put a new ad on your screen (taking up a nice amount of bandwidth), 3) make sure that the ad banner stays on the screen, 4) upon connection, launch your web browser towards Netzero's home page, 5) In an obvious and obnoxious way inform you when there is an update in Netzero's software, 6) and disconnect you if you try to hide the ad banner. The computer mask for all Netzero dial-ups is something like Resale<yourcity>.saturn.bbn.com with a few rare exceptions. The netzero dial up numbers are shared with the standard roaming program that most ISP's use. So for example if you have roaming set up with your ISP, and you travel to another city, almost always the dial-ups for your roaming program are the same as Netzero. The way that the dial-up server recognizes you as a "roamer" is that for roaming your ISP requires you to add a @<yourisp>.com to your user name. Removing the ad banner: NOTE: The following explains how to remove the Netzero ad banner. THIS INFORMATION IS FOR REFERENCE ONLY. Trying to remove the ad banner is a violation of the Netzero Terms of Service and the Netzero User Agreement. Do not hold me responsible for the following information. I do not endorse the following information. Again, to sum up: Don't do this, you didn't hear it from me, and it's your fault. On to the fun stuff. As far as I know, one of the only ways to remove the ad banner is to prevent Zcast from starting in the first place. This is very simple. -->Start up the Netzero software. Wait for it to get to the logon screen. -->Explore to C:\Program Files\Netzero\Bin -->Take the Net.dll file and move it anywhere, just remove it from the Bin folder. -->Continue the dial-up process -->Netzero will connect, and because the net.dll file is what launches Zcast, there will be no irritations. -->When you want to connect to Netzero again, just replace the net.dll file into the bin folder and start over. It is important that you wait for the logon screen to come up before you remove net.dll from the bin folder, otherwise Netzero will terminate. Now I'm sure that soon enough they will come out with a new software release that makes this useless, but as long as Zcast never starts, they can't force you to download anything. This will also remove the "You have been idle, you will be disconnected in 60 seconds". Kinda nice, eh? Replacing the Netzero graphics: When you initially launch Netzero, a splash screen comes up that you must wait to time out. This takes around 4 seconds. I suggest replacing this image with something more interesting. The name of the graphic is nzs.bmp in the following directory -----> C:\Program Files\Netzero After the logon screen, when you are connecting, the image that has a big Netzero icon on the left, and "We believe in a Free Internet" on the right is netzerobig3.gif and can be found in -----------> C:\Program Files\Netzero\images The icon that is found in the upper left hand corner depicting a N and a Z when connection is netzero.gif in the following folder ----------> C:\Program Files\Netzero\images Peace, Slip Shoutouts to: _AW0L_, Neuro, Nudemonk, and Polarfire Visit http://www.hacktech.org