Technology

59402 readers

2525 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

996

Windows 11 Start menu ads are now rolling out to everyone (www.theverge.com)

submitted 6 months ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

425 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Microsoft is starting to enable ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11 for all users. After testing these briefly with Windows Insiders earlier this month, Microsoft has started to distribute update KB5036980 to Windows 11 users this week, which includes “recommendations” for apps from the Microsoft Store in the Start menu.

Luckily you can disable these ads, or “recommendations” as Microsoft calls them. If you’ve installed the latest KB5036980 update then head into Settings > Personalization > Start and turn off the toggle for “Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more.” While KB5036980 is optional right now, Microsoft will push this to all Windows 11 machines in the coming weeks.

Microsoft’s move to enable ads in the Windows 11 Start menu follows similar promotional spots in the Windows 10 lock screen and Start menu. Microsoft also started testing ads inside the File Explorer of Windows 11 last year before disabling the experiment and saying the test was “not intended to be published externally.” Hopefully that experiment remains very much an experiment.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

Just like other enshittification, they don’t care if you turn off the ads because they have a captive audience in your grandmother. Think of all the non-techies who will just accept this. Or not even conceive of a way to turn it off. The question is how many will this push to give up Windows? So far it’s proven extremely “sticky”, they have freedom to abuse their customers, who have to come back for more.

So it’s at least somewhat of a losing proposition for Microsoft as well, if people follow through. There are more choices available everyday, but it means learning something new.

I do need to revisit Window’s myself. I consume media on iOS, work on OSX and Linux, do home projects on Linux, so a lot of my time is other platforms. However my laptop is still Windows, for one remaining game plus tax prep software. I should try these again