Microsoft starts testing ads in the Windows 11 Start menu
Microsoft starts testing ads in the Windows 11 Start menu
The first ads in the Windows 11 Start menu will look familiar.
So Microsoft is one of the most valuable companies in the entire world. They have a stranglehold on corporate America, power a huge the cloud infrastructure, hold one of the largest sources of telemetry/user data, and are the defacto standard of PC environments worldwide.
Why in the fuck do they need to pivot to ads? I’m genuinely curious. Even if they lost 50% of their entire business they would still be one of the most profitable companies in the world.
Although not the same, this has been going on for about two years now. Jensen Harris, a former MS engineer, criticized the ads as well as the design of the new Start Menu, over here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1564399431545667585.html
If they could inject the ad's into your veins, they would.
Cool. I just started testing Nobara
I have a Linux/Windows guide for all of you, since Microshit is seemingly pulling off new shenanigans.
I do not care what the fuck you use, just avoid Manjaro, Clear Linux or those weird distros. Use Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Fedora, anything mainstream, secure and solid. Snaps or not, everyone is in the same camp - pro-usability.
I suggest using either Windows 10 AME offline beyond EOL, or Windows 11 with Ameliorated playbooks, as secondary option to Linux to ease the transition and have a compatible OS for games/software.
Slowly reduce Windows dependence even if it cannot be fully ruled out. If you can use Windows offline, it can be the second best outcome.
Also, consider a separate $20-30 128/256 GB SSD for Windows. Isolation is one of the best things you can do.
I think that this betrays their plans: Windows will go "free with ads", with an ad-free version that is subscription only. That doesn't hurt their bottomline since the governments and companies of the western world will still go subscription in order to get support. The ones who don't have enough money for that (individuals, small countries/companies, small municipalities), they will go "free with ads". I mean, practically, Windows is free even right now. They have oem serial numbers that activate the OS for free, legally, to be reused. So why not make it profitable, it's their thinking. Also, on newer builds of Win11 you can't avoid logging in without an msn account.
I’ve used Linux on every PC except my gaming PC for years. This year I made the final leap because of decisions like this from Microsoft.
Very few games have failed to work, the ones that have are all from Epic and they fail because of their shitty anticheat software. The only other things I feel the lack of are paint.net and the Affinity apps.
Microsoft: how can we get even more money while enraging everyone?
This is pretty much how you destroy a good product. Hello Linux!
I keep seeing headlines like this all the time. I'm over here like "This has already been a thing for years". Whenever I'd setup a win10 pc for someone, I'd have to clean the ads out of the start menu as part of the setup. So I ask again, how is this any different from the bullshit we're already dealing with?
It's like they want to go out of business
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The software maker will use the Recommended section of the Start menu, which usually shows file recommendations, to suggest apps from the Microsoft Store.
“This will appear only for Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel in the US and will not apply to commercial devices (devices managed by organizations),” says Microsoft in a blog post.
The app promotions can be disabled in the Settings section of Windows 11, but it appears that Microsoft will enable these by default.
Microsoft is seeking feedback on the changes, so it’s possible the company could decide to ditch these ads in development builds of Windows 11 if there’s enough feedback that suggests they’re not going to be a popular addition.
Microsoft started testing ads inside the File Explorer of Windows 11 last year before disabling the experiment in beta versions of Windows 11.
Microsoft has been experimenting with ads inside Windows for more than 10 years.
The original article contains 222 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 32%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Maybe this is why you can't have a toolbar on the taskbar, to force you into the start menu more.
The wierd part is, if i think about my star menu usage in win10, there hardly is one. The important programs are on the task bar. The Startmenu isn't as much needed as used to be. Still sucks though.
Thank you microsoft for doing bad changes to the windows operating system im sure linux users will enjoy this
Advertising is a goddamn disease.
If Microsoft does that I'm wiping out my laptop and going back to Linux*
* only reason I moved away is I bought a new laptop to replace my 2010 Mac mini that ran LinuxMint, and the laptop came preloaded with Windows 11 and I decided to just keep using it as-is as I liked the UI.
Fun fact: it is not an entirely new idea. Microsoft did something similar with Active Desktop in Windows 98 but was later removed.
If you have to stay on windows check out: https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu
I coincidentally installed Linux Mint today and I'm not going back.
I stopped using Windows in 2008 (juggling between a mixture of Linux and Mac OS). One of the reasons, is that at that time I thought Windows was legitimately a mess.
Over time, I thought it got a bit better when seeing it on friends's computers.
Due to laziness, Windows 11 got installed on my office computer (which I use 1% of my time) and I thought it was honestly pretty good (as in, I never thought about switching back, but it was fine to use it when necessary).
Now that they plug in ads, I'll certainly want to switch back /s
I know linux is likely the better option here, but for me I have two words...
Winaero Tweaker
i'm daily driving mint for a month now and i appreciate i did