How about a completely diffrent aproach :

You currently have 8 banners circulating

how about making a dir on the limewire website and dump them in there :

example http://www.limewire.com/ads/

and then number all ads like this inside that dir :
ad01.gif
ad02.gif
ad03.gif
...

Then built a routine inside LimeWire to download them all when it starts up , and display them randomly . (preffered)

Or

Make download it again everytime it changes the currently displaying ad . (not so preffered)

Now with today's modern web-servers it wouldn't be that hard to count how much that file gets downloaded .

Why use aurate / Cydoor / ... when you can simply make a routine to download the file from a regular webserver ?

The main problem that the LimeWire team has with the ads is not displaying them to the people but proving to the ad-companies that they have been actually displayed or they won't get paid

See Cydoor and Aurate don't only circulate the ads like the LimeWire crew claims but it also counts how long and how manny times the ad has been displayed .

Who knows what their agreement with the ad companies is ?

- fixed amount of $$
- $$ per download of ad
- $$ per view of ad (best gues)
- $$ per time ad is displayed
- $$ per click

exept for the first option all those arrangments need some kind of feedback to the ad-companies .

When it downloads ads , we say : OK
When it shows ads , we say : OK
when it sends feedback of those ads : Alarm , red alert !!

And that's why there are so much complaints on the forum about the ads .

Most people don't mind the ads being showed .
What they do mind is that "feedback" that programs like Cydoor and Aurate provide .

So the questions is not : How do we get rid of the ads ?
But : What other options then Spyware do we have to keep the ad firms happy and thus LimeWire paid ?

Now you people say : Why don't we make LimeWire do this all itself ; display the ads and provide the feedback ?

Because those big ad-firms won't trust LimeWire at that level , they won't say "You tell us how much ads you displayed this month and well pay you , no evidence needed to support that number . Gold bouillion or silver krougerrands this time ?"

Spyware is completly developed sepperatly by the ad-firms .
Then they give it to the LimeWire crew with instructions on how to insert it into the program .
They don't get to change a single byte .

If they would give the specifications of the online and server end of the spyware , LimeWire would gladly accept that arrangement and write their own ad-code into LimeWire .

But no , like I said the ad firms don't trust LimeWire on that level and won't let them write their own code for the feedback .
So their stuck with the spyware that their ad firm provides .
Wich usually does nasty things we don't like .

"So , go with another ad firm !"

That would be the most logical thing to conclude .
But have you looked at the list of spyware recently ?

It's thaaat long ...

Good luck finding an ad firm wich doesn't force spyware onto LimeWire .