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Microsoft is not done yet: more ads spotted in latest Windows 11 build - gHacks Tech News

When is an ad an advertisement and not a recommendation? Microsoft clearly likes to use the term recommendation for what others may see as an advertisement.

There are recommendations in the Start menu, Settings app, Lock screen, File Explorer, Get Help app, and other areas of the operating system already. These are often not that useful. App recommendations in the Start menu are limited to Microsoft Store apps.

Now, Microsoft is testing recommendations in the Microsoft Store app. If you never use the app, you won’t be exposed to these. If you do, you may notice recommendations popping up when you try to use the built-in search.

First spotted by phantomofearth on X, two or three recommendations are shown whenever search is activated in the official Microsoft Store app.

NegativeLookBehind ,
@NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world avatar

Omg I’m so mad about this

lol jk I use Linux

henfredemars ,

I use Linux at home and am disappointed with this news. I can’t help having to use Windows at work.

SorryQuick ,

Most workplaces have those disabled through the group policy editor and the likes. I’ve never seen a single ad on my work laptop. Cortana, copilot and all that crap are also disabled by default.

vikingtons ,
@vikingtons@lemmy.world avatar

I’d be curious at the percentage of windows users actually using the store app.

As for the context of these ads, the store would kind of make more sense than within your settings landing page, start menu, search dialog, browser nagware, solitaire app etc.

RmDebArc_5 ,
@RmDebArc_5@sh.itjust.works avatar

If I remember correctly some (mainly Microsoft made apps) are store only and some system apps are updated through it so probably a large part of users use it

vikingtons ,
@vikingtons@lemmy.world avatar

This is a fair point, an I had considered this to be a case but the store is capable of automatically updating apps in the background. I believe this is the default behaviour but I could be mistaken.

There is also a chance a user may be directed to the store if they’re required to buy the HEVC or install the AV1 system plugins.

shalafi ,

Anecdotally, I don’t know anyone that uses it. In the years working IT since the Store came out, not a single coworker has asked me about it.

Logging into my customer’s computers and I don’t see any evidence that they use it either.

conciselyverbose ,

The more relevant question IMO is what proportion of software (or by revenue) is installed through the Windows store.

Because compared to android (even counting Amazon fire and whatever other third party devices), I’m guessing that’s pretty low.

PythagreousTitties ,

It’s a PC. Why would anyone use “the store” to install anything?

Ghostalmedia ,
@Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world avatar

People need to stop complaining about the ads and they need to start complaining about the existence of a Windows monetization team.

Kill that team now while the revenue is small and the shareholders won’t throw a giant hissy fit.

As long as that team exists, they’re going to be putting ads in shit. Cut the head off the snake.

TheGoldenGod ,
@TheGoldenGod@lemmy.world avatar

Are we speaking metaphorically or literally? sharpens blades

gravitas_deficiency ,

Yes

xavier666 ,

Ad injection will continue till public morale improves

NaibofTabr ,

Microsoft put themselves in this position when they started giving out Windows 10 for free. It was effective in bringing most of the market onto the new version, but it set an expectation which it now feels like they can’t break, so they’re also giving Windows 11 away. Now to offset that missing revenue, they have to do something to extract value from users.

I don’t see how they could stop this without replacing it with something more exploitive.

henfredemars ,

I’d be happy to buy the OS too, but I want it to be a one-time payment and to quit with ads and all telemetry.

ButtholeSpiders ,
@ButtholeSpiders@startrek.website avatar

This, so much. Hell I’ll pay the old prices to never see an ad or pop up.

TheGoldenGod ,
@TheGoldenGod@lemmy.world avatar

I remember being young and thinking an OEM copies price was brutal lol.

Imgonnatrythis ,

That’s so old fashioned grandpa. Just give them a straw and let them sip out of your bank account like everyone else. You sound like the kind of person that lives in a house with a yard.

Seriously though, subscription models seem here to stay and they’ve just made for an incredibly adversarial relationship between industry and consumer.

NaibofTabr ,

I hate the rent-seeking economy.

bolexforsoup ,

Microsoft is the only company that charges for an operating system so frankly I don’t understand why they feel entitled to that income anyway

conciselyverbose , (edited )

It’s effectively bundled with Apple hardware (which also dramatically lowers their development costs; they don’t support anything they don’t ship and are perfectly willing to abandon hardware once it no longer supports the level of hardware features they feel the new OS version needs). I’m not sure it’s that different.

Android is free (maybe? Do phone manufacturers pay for Google play branding?), but they make their money by having the lions share of software going through their storefront. Microsoft is never going to do that with Windows.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

Back in the 90s Apple charge for OS upgrades. I saved my allowance money to get OS 8 and was super happy when I got OS X 10.2 for Christmas. Once they could reliably deliver upgrades over the Internet they stopped charging for it.

conciselyverbose ,

The story I always heard was that there were some weird accounting rules that were, if not codified legally, common practice at the time, that made the book keeping on free updates sketchier. But I don’t know about the validity of that.

I definitely don’t think “free” justifies any of Windows bullshit. I did pay for 10 (pro) for gaming several years back, but with the real emergence of proton the steam deck accelerated, I wouldn’t install windows on any of my systems for free now. They’re super hostile to users and are just assuming that inertia is good enough that they can get away with it.

bolexforsoup ,

You could say that about any product or service. “They don’t charge for a steering wheel on your car it’s bundled in.” But that’s not a useful or meaningful distinction.

The issue here is windows famously charged until very recently (and still sort of does) which distinguishes it from those that don’t charge.

conciselyverbose ,

But Windows is the product. Hardware is a small part of their revenue, and most of their install base is hardware that isn’t theirs.

MacOS is also part of Apple’s product, but they pretty much only sell higher margin premium hardware that both pays for and streamlines the OS development process.

bolexforsoup ,

Windows OS is not the product.

conciselyverbose ,

Yes, it absolutely is.

Ghostalmedia ,
@Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world avatar

Google and Apple are definitely charging for that software development. In the case of Apple, it is being folded into hardware prices or used as a loss leader for pricy subscriptions / apps.

Google is also making a buck on subscriptions / apps, but instead of hardware, they’re also making money from licensing software to 3rd party Android manufacturers, and because Google gonna Google, they want that ad revenue.

And I would also argue that a lot of Linux distros make money from professional services and what not.

Most of the big boys aren’t doing the work for free

TheBigBrother ,

There is nothing free in this life…

refurbishedrefurbisher ,

Linux is free.

TheBigBrother ,

Monetarily yes, but not free of time, in fact time it’s the most precious resource we have.

blind3rdeye ,

A one-off time ‘investment’ of switching to Linux will save you from all future cases of searching for how to wrestle with the latest Windows crapware. If you switch, you’ll be in time-debt for a few months, and after that you’ll be ahead - and you’ll stay ahead indefinitely. You’ll also have the piece of mind that you are not being spied on and monetised by your OS.

TheBigBrother ,

Personally I use Linux, and TBH as I value my free time it’s why I say it, if you need something that just works and don’t want to mess around looking for fixing trivial errors on the internet I would suggest using windows to 95% of people, I hate windows but I must admit if it’s about stability at exchange of looking ads with not tech ability definitely it’s the most recommended.

Linux it’s amazing but it’s not for everyone.

It’s like the eternal battle Apple VS Android, if you just want it to work and don’t want to mess around with trivial errors definitely Apple it’s the choice, you lose liberty and privacy but for most people it will work fine.(I use Android)

mrvictory1 ,

It’s like the eternal battle Apple VS Android

My subjective opinion: Comparing Linux v Windows to iOS v Android is a terrible analogy. Both mobile OS work fine and have little differences.

Trail ,

Your argument sounds OK, but is probably stuck a bunch of years in the past. I observe the opposite lately.

Like I want to do something trivial on windows, like move the fucking taskbar on the left side of the screen, I have spent time searching and it still does not work. At lest on Linux if something does not work you have a leg to work on and a community to help. Have you seen the windows forums when encountering an issue? It’s tragic.

Katana314 ,

I just tried it out, not even knowing before your comment.

Right click taskbar, uncheck Lock all Taskbars, click and drag it to the left side. Done.

Meanwhile, when I was using my Steam Deck as a desktop, it refused to save the position of my taskbar on my main monitor. Plus, when I did move it across each time I booted up, it would leave behind half the buttons because they’re considered separate entities. Thank god for oh almighty user customization - making it incredibly hard to do something simple.

Trail ,

Are you on windows 11?

Katana314 ,

No, this is on 10. Perhaps they’ve made it harder there.

Trail ,

Well, not harder. Impossible. That’s my gripe.

jj4211 ,

I think this overstates the “you must futz with it” of both Android and the common Linux desktop. Broadly speaking, both are pretty much fine out of the box for most people and the stuff they are likely to want to do to Windows is similarly easy to do with a likely default desktop environment (I’d say KDE more likely than Gnome, since Gnome opts to try not let you do a lot of stuff and demands you have to do “weird stuff” for some customizations). You don’t have to play with “expert tiling-only window manager N” or go off the deep end tweaking to the Nth degree.

Same with Android, though with even less likelihood of anyone bothering to go “off script”. 99% of Android users never touch adb, never do an oem unlock, never boot an aftermarket OS load.

The fact that you can, does not imply you must.

Damage ,

Microsoft put themselves in this position when they went against the open source movement.
It moves slowly but inexorably, and sooner or later Linux or another open source OS will take their spot on the desktop.

Virkkunen ,
@Virkkunen@fedia.io avatar

When is ad an advertisement and not a recommendation?

Always? That's why it's called ad instead of recommendation

SkaveRat ,

Then the question is: “When is a recommendation an ad?”

For which I’d say: When the person recommending it is gaining something from it

ricdeh ,
@ricdeh@lemmy.world avatar

Or at least when they recommend it with the intent of gaining something from it

bolexforsoup ,

That’s not really a good description either. Advertisements are pretty clear: the deliberate promotion of a product or service to an audience. Saying “I like this app” in natural conversation doesn’t mean I don’t stand to benefit.

sylver_dragon ,

While I hate ads as much as the next person, I’m having trouble getting outraged by ads in an app store. “Recommendations” are kinda par for that course. Sure, it would be nice if those “recommendations” actually reflected stuff I was interested in and not just who paid Microsoft the most for ad placement. But, I also aggressively turn off telemetry (and actually don’t use Windows at home). So, it’s not like I expect useful recommendations anyway.

iAmTheTot ,

I have used Windows 10 for years and recently switched to Windows 11 and I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ad in my day to day OS use. I don’t do the registry edits or turn off the telemetry stuff, either. I don’t know what I’m doing differently but I’m not seeing these ads that apparently infected Windows.

folekaule ,

Most of these reports are about preview builds of Windows.

That said, surely you have seen recommendations from Microsoft to try their Office package and such oil up. It’s like that, but more intrusive.

I can’t believe Microsoft is making me switch from Windows to Mac and Linux, but here we are.

iAmTheTot ,

Actually, no I’ve never seen an ad for office but that might be because I’m already a customer.

andyburke ,
@andyburke@fedia.io avatar

Are you running Home or a Pro-like version?

iAmTheTot ,

puu.sh/KaKuI/9bef788dd5.png

Codename_goose ,
@Codename_goose@sh.itjust.works avatar

The home edition of windows has these ads baked in, but the pro/enterprise editions seem to be able to avoid this for now.

iAmTheTot ,

I have home.

Codename_goose ,
@Codename_goose@sh.itjust.works avatar

If you also live in Europe or set up your computer in the US with European English then you can also skirt some of the ads as well

iAmTheTot ,

Nope and nope.

ShittyBeatlesFCPres ,

I would say a “recommendation” is an ad when an accountant is involved instead of (or in addition to) a curator. Even if it’s Microsoft recommending Microsoft’s products, department budgets probably track that internally (though I’m sure the official accounting is done in a way that shifts profits to a tax haven).

r00ty Admin ,
r00ty avatar

Yeah, basically as soon as money changes hands, a recommendation becomes an ad.

dinckelman ,

How many more of these will it take, until people start looking for alternatives

lustyargonian ,

I think it is already happening gradually. SteamDeck has single handedly opened the eyes of so many already. M1 Macs did that for macOS as well.

cakeistheanswer ,
@cakeistheanswer@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I think it’s grossly undersold personally. What valve has managed is getting the single target platform open source could never agree on.

It’s a small miracle, and it bleeds over into stuff like device driver support in a way I don’t think most people who didn’t deal with Linux in the 2.x era immediately appreciate.

If Linux on the desktop has a surge, they did a lot of the legwork.

QuarterSwede ,
@QuarterSwede@lemmy.world avatar

Until it affects businesses it won’t change. Once they start to add them to Office, it’s all over.

flop_leash_973 ,

This is not gonna stop until the consumer puts their money where there mouths are and stops using Windows until Microsoft back peddles. Money is all a company understands so that is where you need to hit them if you want them to listen. But as a group the consumer has a very weak constitution when it comes to having to do something that is good for them in the long term but causes them short term inconvenience. A lot of parallels to the modern corporate world in that.

lustyargonian ,

Could it be that consumers are putting money where there mouths are and this is just Microsoft desperately trying to increase their margins since their business isn’t growing anymore?

I mean the more people move away, the more likely it is Microsoft would milk the ones who can’t.

dodos ,

Especially considering the news on poor adoption rates for windows 11, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the case. It could also be an explanation as to why we are only seeing these ads added to w11 right now.

Lost_My_Mind ,

Isn’t something like half of Windows purchases from businesses though?

And I feel like the younger crowd isn’t even buying PCs. Just tablets and phones.

So, nothing will change, because businesses don’t care if Jerry from accounting has to look at a bud light advertisement as a recovering alcoholic.

And PCs might fade away like typewritters did.

But don’t worry. Printers will still exist wirelessly. They’ll still have a finicky driver that breaks if you even look at the printer, and it’ll still use ink that costs as much as a mortgage on a subscription model.

Because fuck trees!

andyburke ,
@andyburke@fedia.io avatar

Install any popular Linux distro. They are all so much better than any proprietary OS. And if you are running relatively common hardware, everything will just work.

Ioughttamow ,

I’m just riding win10 until I finally nab a new gpu and 5700x3d. Htpc and media server are running mint, I think I’ll change the server distro next time I upgrade the hardware though

misterwu , (edited )

I already run Linux on my laptop. The one thing keeping me from getting rid of Windows on my big machine is Forza games. Motorsport does not seem to work at all with proton/wine (yet)

rozodru ,
@rozodru@lemmy.ca avatar

really? I got Forza Horizon working on my Linux machine through Steam.

What distro are you using? I’ve heard if you’re on Mint you’re going to have a bad time. I’m using CachyOS and haven’t had any issues.

misterwu ,

Didn’t try it with Horizon, i want to play Forza Motorsport (2023) which is completely borked because of the shitty microsoft DRM

sturmblast ,

I’m so happy that I will never have to deal with this on my home computers. At work we can at least disable it all via policies. But my god has Microsoft lost its way. What happened to making professional business products?

Bluefruit ,

As soon as they announced ads were gonna be in the start menu, i noped out of windows. I only use it for work which doesn’t bother me because im not doing anything private on my work pc.

I switched to Fedora 40 with KDE and never looked back. My only real gripe is with making music. Getting the VSTs to work and setting up yabridge is kind of a headache that i still need to do 😮‍💨 aside from that, Linux has been my daily driver for quite a while now and im happy i switched even though im still learning.

SomeGuy69 ,
@SomeGuy69@lemmy.world avatar

Recommendations is just an euphemism marketing joke. Every serious journalist would call them what they are, ads.

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