How to Remove Annoying Ads from Your Spotify Tunes

There is nothing more irritating than having a nice jam session interrupted by an ad selling B vitamins, and that's exactly what Spotify does to you if you don't pay up.

Spotify is a digital music service that gives users access to millions of new and old songs, and unlike Pandora, which is more of a glorified radio station (just saying), Spotify's free service allows users to create personalized playlists from Spotify's entire music library.

However, this option is only for those using the application on their computer—and it comes with ads. In order for users to access that same library on their mobile devices, they need to purchase a premium account which will run you $9.99 a month. With this premium account users can stream the music library from anywhere, including their computer, completely ad-free.

But, if you want to avoid paying $9.99, there are a few workarounds that might help you out.

Silence Them

While completely eliminating ads for Spotify's free users is currently not an option, since the company needs these ads to run its business, you can at least keep them quiet.

Smutefy recognizes ads and automatically lowers the volume on your computer. So, instead of hearing another ad, you will just sit through a couple seconds of quietness. One downside is that the program "requires" users to also download two other programs, Soundflower and Growl. I ran Smutefy without downloading either program and it seemed to run just fine, though, so try it for yourself.

Image Credit gawkerassets.com

If you don't want to download a bunch of programs to your computer, this second method is perfect. All you need is some copy-paste skills. Australian hacker Nik Cubrilovic came up with a simple script which basically alters the way Spotify runs on your Mac, forcing it to automatically silence ads.

The ads have a unique descriptor with the word "Spotify" in the programming language. So, when the script finds these "Spotify" tags, it automatically mutes the volume on your computer. The script is only for Mac users. Simply open up Apple Script Editor and paste this code in.

For Windows users looking for a similar program, you can download Blockify.

Freemium Access

For people just being introduced to Spotify, they are offering a free 30 days of premium access right now. Just make sure to cancel your membership before your thirty days are up. Companies do these offers banking on the fact that many people will simply forget to cancel.

You can also get 3, 6, or 12 months of free premium membership by filing out surveys, participating in affiliated companies' programs, or referring your friends and family.

And you can also do some digging and find companies that offer Spotify in some of their bundled packages, like Virgin Broadband, which offers 3 months of Spotify Premium with the purchase of their VIP or Premiere media bundles.

These are just a few ways of gaming the system and racking up months of free premium Spotify. Spotify is a great service and we in no way are advocating users to avoid paying the company its money (but where there's a will there's a way).

Image by Gawker