"An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted." - Arthur Miller

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Remove Ads from Echofon for Firefox (Updated)

Thanks to new limitations that Twitter has forced on third party developers, Echofon had to discontinue their awesome desktop apps including Echofon for Firefox and Echofon for Windows. Twitter is trying to reach point where they are the only source for any tweets and only their apps can be used, which is unfortunate as their apps tend to suck. To me Echofon is one of the best and recommend it for whatever version you can find. If you are lucky enough to find a copy (since they removed it from Mozilla and their own site), below are instructions on how to remove ads from Echofon for Firefox. This might work for the Windows version too but have not tried it. Or to put it another way below is a crack for Echofon without needing an email or license key. If don't already use it, make sure to check out Echofon for iPad, iPhone and soon Android.

1) In a new Firefox tab, type: about:support then hit enter
2) On the screen that comes up, click the button that says "Show Folder".
3) Open the "Extensions" folder
4) Open the "twitternotifier@naan.net" folder
5) Open the "components" folder
6) Open the file "nsEchofon.js" in a text editor (Notepad, etc.). A mess of code will open. Don't worry, you don't need to understand it to do this.
7) Click the mouse into the very top area of the file. Don't change anything, just want the blinking cursor.
8) Do a search (CTRL+F, maybe Edit > Find), in the search field cut and paste the following: this._pref.setBoolPref("licensed", false); then click search
9) When it finds the text, where it says "false", change that to "true" so it looks like the following: this._pref.setBoolPref("licensed", true);
10) Save the file.
11) Restart firefox, the ads should be gone.

So for coders it was:
verifyLicense: function(param) {
var email = this._pref.getCharPref("license_to");
var key = this._pref.getCharPref("license_key");
if (email.length && key.length) {
var callback = this;
EchofonUtils.verifyLicense(email, key, callback);
}
else {
this._pref.setBoolPref("licensed", false);

Now this:
verifyLicense: function(param) {
var email = this._pref.getCharPref("license_to");
var key = this._pref.getCharPref("license_key");
if (email.length && key.length) {
var callback = this;
EchofonUtils.verifyLicense(email, key, callback);
}
else {
this._pref.setBoolPref("licensed", true);


If this works, make sure to post in the comments. Also if try this for Windows, make sure let us know how it works.

Update: As of June 11th, 2013 Twitter retired their v1 API. The result is if try to send a message via Echofon for Firefox or Windows you will get "HTTP 410 Gone". There is no solution for that because those versions of Echofon use the v1 API and they would have rewrite it for v2. Which they are not doing since no longer support the apps things to limitations put in place to try and force 3rd party apps out of business while giving the illusion that isn't what they are really trying to do. From my experience I can still download tweets and read them (but sync doesn't work) but I am unable to send messages so while limiting, it is still easier to keep track of tweets then trying to use Twitter's apps.

9 comments:

  1. Would you happen to have an XPI for the Firefox addon available? I can't seem to find it anywhere on the net.

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  2. It would seem that they were all removed from firefox's addon ftp server afer it's discontinuation. I only have those xpis up to version 2.4.3.

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  3. THANK YOU so much, your explanation was so easy to follow and it worked for me. No more ads. From an old 56yr female. lol

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lol it works, Thank you, it just takes 3 minutes to do:)

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  5. THX it worked!

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  6. doesn't work on windows

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes it does work on windows! Tryied it with echofon 2.5.2 and firefox 19!

      Delete
  7. I have just installed echofon 2.5.2 in firefox 19 from here http://khaosd.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/echofon-for-twitter-2-4-2-multiupload/ all the versions are here http://ftp.riken.go.jp/pub/mozilla/addons/5081/
    At the moment Echofon is still the best addon for twitter in firefox!

    Thank you for your tip it worked!!! No more ads and the best firefox addon. Hope the link and your solution will really help others!

    ReplyDelete
  8. ^^^^^^^^^^^
    Thank you very much : ) I was so scared of changing to some new Firefox-Twitter add on as I got a new computer.

    ReplyDelete