outlook email help

I am not a technical person, and I'm a little embarrassed to ask for help in such a trivial matter. I have a 5 year old Dell Inspiron desk top using Windows XP.
Recently, my hotmail account was changed to Outlook email. Three columns appear on the screen: left is "inbox" etc; the center is info about incoming emails; and the right column contains ads. Is it possible to reduce the size of or eliminate the right column? Thanks in advance. I haven't had to bother you guys in about 18 months

 

No. Since it's a free service, some advertising is to be expected.

 

I rarely use either Outlook.com or IE, though I do have both. Some time ago I installed Privacy Choice in IE9 in Win 7 and that seems to be just as effective as ABP is in FF or Chrome. It also continued to work when I upgraded to IE10.

 

You could also use an email client like http://www.majorgeeks.com/Windows_Live_Mail_d5670.html That's what I use. Once it's set up you get the emails but none of the ads.

 

There are couple of solutions here.

If you prefer to use Outlook.com you can customize it using Firefox extensions like GreaseMonkey (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/) - it is an extension that is capable of injecting custom JavaScript and HTML into existing page. That is how you can customize existing pages as long as they don't change. For customization you need to use scripts that are available elsewhere. For example this script hides Outlook ads (http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/139836). Most likely you can find a script that customizes Outlook.com looks. You may also try to write your own scripts if you are really into it.

You can use also use email client such as OE Classic (http://www.oeclassic.com) which is a replacement for Outlook Express and Windows Live Mail. OE Classic being an email client can connect to Outlook.com and download your emails because Outlook.com allows POP3 access.