Windows 11 has become rather notorious for Microsoft jamming in adverts – or ‘recommendations’ of one sort of another – pretty much everywhere in the interface, but the company’s latest move on the ad front looks to be a positive one.
Anything that makes it easier to manage ads or ‘recommendations’ popping up in Windows 11 is, of course, welcome (Image Credit: Microsoft)
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Windows Latest noticed a recent change in test builds of Windows 11 in the Canary and Beta channels (although not everyone has seen this, so the measure is seemingly still rolling out on a limited basis).
It involves the Privacy & security panel in the Settings app, where Microsoft has taken the ‘General’ options page and turned it into a ‘Recommendation & Offers’ page.
The content is still much the same, just with one extra option added. As Windows Latest observes, that’s a ‘Personalized offers’ toggle which promises to show personalized ads, tips and recommendations in Windows 11 based on your activity in the OS.
That option was previously hidden away in the ‘Diagnostic data’ page (in Settings) as a somewhat differently worded ‘Tailored experiences’ option. At any rate, the new description of the option seems clearer, and indeed all of the descriptions of the toggles in the ‘Recommendation & Offers’ panel are now crafted with a higher level of clarity as to what they do.
A small but useful step forward
In short, this seems to be an honest effort from Microsoft to make turning off ads and recommendations easier in Windows 11.
No, it’s not a major move – just a matter of rewording things to make them clearer, and shifting an important, previously buried, choice, to a more readily accessible place in the Settings app.
Still, every little positive step forward helps, and having this new section will mean more Windows 11 users are likely to understand these options (and spot the ability to turn off ads, tips and recommendations in the first place – which is a pretty important choice).
We assume the function of the slider to turn off ads, tips and recommendations remains the same as before, even if the wording has changed slightly from it ‘using your diagnostic data’ as it’s presently put in Windows 11, to ads using ‘your Windows activity’ in this change in Microsoft’s test builds. An ominous sign, some of you might think? Probably not on balance, we reckon this is just a reach for greater clarity in line with the rest of the overhaul here (fingers crossed, anyway).
Microsoft’s moves to inject more ads into Windows 11 this year have included the Settings app itself, and the introduction of an advert for the Game Pass subscription there (as well as possibly pushing ads into the Microsoft Store, and countless other initiatives in testing, too).