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Assuming this custom home template is including the standard sidebar.php file, I would open sidebar.php and look for something like this:

<?php get_archives('postbypost', '10', 'custom', '<li>', '</li>'); ?>

You are basically looking for the function that is displaying the recent posts and removing that. There is probably a title that goes along with it, so you will need to remove that as well. Look for something lie:

<h2><?php _e('Recent Posts'); ?></h2>

The template could also be calling a plugin or custom function by another name.

You can change the image the RSS sidebar widget uses by replacing the default rss.png image located here (this will also change the rss icon the admin area uses):

\wp-includes\images\rss.png

The image should be 14px by 14px

If you really do not want the image you can add this to your stylesheet:

.rsswidget img{
  display:none;
  }

Hope that helps.

Have you tried removing the wp-autoblog plugin using FTP? You should probably remove the plugin either way, auto-blogging is border line pure evil. Unless, of course, you are the 1 in a million guy who is using it legitimately ??

The easiest thing to do would be to use a related or similar posts plugin. Some operate based on tags, others on categories.

It’s a little more involved to do it yourself but very possible. Will each post only belong to a single category? If a post belongs to more then one category which category do you want to get the 5 additional posts from . . all of them? One from each? Random?

Check out this possible fix:
https://trac.www.ads-software.com/ticket/6443

The title doesnt sound like your problem but it seems this has worked for people with similar problems. At least according to: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/163902?replies=61