Ads are coming to Windows 11 KB5036980

Ivanp91v said:

You can opt-out but why make it automatic enabled

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Surely you're being facetious with that question.

While it's awful that they're using the OS we paid for to display ads for things we have no interest in, it's not like they're any more intrusive than ads in a search engine. Somewhat less, since they're sitting in an isolated area where probably few people really look. I'm glad they're not like popup ads that you have to move aside or close or even scroll past in order to use the Start menu at all, and they're not flashing in the side of our vision while we're trying to read large amounts of content.

The worst part for me is that you aren't just "disabling ads", you're disabling the entire recommendation function, or at least large parts of it. While I don't personally care about that entire section at all (why do I need Microsoft to recommend files that I've opened in the past and could go back and open again?), and don't need tips or likely anything they'll ever put there, the option to disable points out they'll disable Tips and "more", which could be things that some people would like. So you can't have the feature at all if you don't accept ads for Store apps.

Microsoft did their job too well with Windows 7 (I skipped Vista) in making me learn to just type the names of things on the Start menu to get to them instead of locating them on the menu manually. I don't look at anything on the menu for the most part except the few things I've pinned or locating the program or file that I want at the top after I've typed.

That's like the first thing I do when I install, disable all the recommendation stuff, the search results from the web, the popup notifications for things other than a small handful of apps, etc. My start menu should contain my programs and shortcuts, nothing else. Last thing the IT world needs is Windows saying to every user out there, "Hey, why don't you go ahead and install this random program you have never had need of before?"

Yeah, they can be disabled, but....let's not forget the actual fact that a high percentage of users want to have ads, they thrive on the possibilities (endless) open to them and quite patent on those advertisements. We are always riding the lowest common denominator tyranny of idiocy du jour. We want a better world? Hmm, perhaps it is already too late for education....

Do we have a set of URLs that the ads are coming from that we can block at the firewall?