Get Off My Desktop! Windows Needs to Stop Showing Tabloid News

[MiniITXEconomy]

Thank you for bringing this up, and the helpful user guides for toning this garbage down. The 'New Tab' situation with the Edge browser you mentioned, is my main reason for switching to Mozilla - I got so tired of seeing stupid tabloid articles every time I opened one, it was so aggravating!

 

[palladin9479]

For Windows 10 folks, you can control what gets displayed. Bring up the feed then click top right Options -> Manage Interests and Options -> Information cards. I've disabled most everything and only get weather and financial news.

 

[MiniITXEconomy]

Some would call this a clickbaity, tabloid like article as well. I would be one of those people.

It's not, it's an opinion piece. Something every newspaper in the country has/had, typically found under the Commentary or Letters to the Editor section (also Opinion), these articles are not uncommon in the slightest. And while these intrusive ads are easy to turn off, the point of this one is, their existence is a misstep - which it is.

Having your operating system lambast you with trashy, outdated news articles (some of them flat-out erroneous) is a completely stupid feature that doesn't serve the end user in anyway. Used to be you could point that out without folks wanting to argue with you about it...

 

[Deleted member 14196]

I’m actually going to use this to turn that stuff off

 

[OneMoreUser]

I have for the longest time wish for an expert setting in windows, one that saved me from adjusting all sort in order to have more control and transparency only instead things get worse with each new Windows version.
By this time Windows has essentially become spyware and Microsoft is taking advantage to sell advertising, this will likely only get worse and eventually there will be an costly ad-free Windows version (if we are lucky).

 

[OneMoreUser]

Under 2 hours!

But I didn't think it would take that long for the requisite Linux comment to appear.

At least his comment had some value for those that don't know of Linux. Yours - not so much.

 

[Plurality]

I never had this issue on Linux.

Nor I! It's almost as if Linux respects its users!

 

[Deleted member 14196]

So, go use Linux?

 

[USAFRet]

At least his comment had some value for those that don't know of Linux. Yours - not so much.

It was a joke, based on the inevitable.

 

[USAFRet]

I have for the longest time wish for an expert setting in windows, one that saved me from adjusting all sort in order to have more control and transparency only instead things get worse with each new Windows version.
By this time Windows has essentially become spyware and Microsoft is taking advantage to sell advertising, this will likely only get worse and eventually there will be an costly ad-free Windows version (if we are lucky).

I get what you're saying and what you want.
The problem with that is that, while you and I might be actual "experts", everyone thinks they are as well. Or relies on their neighbors kid, who thinks he is an expert.

Turning things off that should not be off.

This is how we got the WannaCry virus.

 

[ezst036]

I wish Microsoft would make a gaming only version of Windows 11 for maximum performance.

Microsoft appears to want Windows to be the all everything everyone everywhere OS, it is probably more realistic to think that Valve will get there sooner with it's Linux-based SteamOS.

Valve has not AFAIK tried to make SteamOS a general-purpose flavor. It's singular focus is all Steam(that means games) all the time. Per-game driver-level optimizations leave Windows faster than Linux for now in many/most game benchmarks, but that will change as Windows users continue their slow bye-bye off of the Win platform and move either to Mac or Linux (both are growing, Mac the faster of the two) and gaming companies continue to join in on the Linux fun.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

They do make a dedicated gaming OS it’s called Xbox

It’s basically stripped down windows and tied to specified hardware all optimized and it’s nice. You don’t ever have to mess with it. No stupid stuttering no driver issues I think it’s wonderful.

gaming on a PC doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s way to cost prohibitive and it’s not an optimizedsystem for games.

 

[Ryan F. Mercer]

Hide the search bar. You don't need it. Just click your start button and start typing.

Hide the widgets and weather. You don't need them. You want weather right on your task bar? Why? There are a 100 ways to keep weather at a glance. Pick a different one.

If there comes a time when I can no longer shut these things off, well then I will be truly pissed off.

Wait for it....

 

[bit_user]

The Linux user that has to know whats going on with Windows!

Sometimes, we like to look on the other side of the fence. Anyway, I also have an old Win 7 PC that I've toyed with the idea of upgrading to Win 10/11, but MS seems intent on giving me a steady supply of reasons to cut ties completely.

Classy Linux user.

Thanks!

 

[bit_user]

I have for the longest time wish for an expert setting in windows, one that saved me from adjusting all sort in order to have more control and transparency only instead things get worse with each new Windows version.

Windows Server Edition? Comes at quite a price hike, if that's the only reason you're using it. Plus, I have no idea how well various consumer-oriented stuff works on it.

 

[bit_user]

gaming on a PC doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s way to cost prohibitive and it’s not an optimizedsystem for games.

Independent game developers and most students aren't going to spring for expensive console SDKs. For Windows to be a half-decent platform for developing games, it needs to be a decent one for playing them.

And there are loads of game-adjacent activities that people also do on Windows and want to run well.

Maybe I'm old-skool, but it seems to me that Jump & Run games are ideal for consoles, while mouse & keyboard games are really something you want to play on a PC.

Consoles are mainly tied to TVs, and I wouldn't like to see a world in which people try to do all their desktop computing on them, also. Their walled garden makes Apple blush.

 

[bit_user]

Installing Windows 11 and then whining about the ad and tabloid spam is like buying an Apple computer and whining you can't upgrade it. Hello? Anybody home?

There are external factors that force some people to use Windows. For others, change is difficult. I get that. I don't think we should engage in victim-blaming. The relationship between Windows and its users does seem to have become abusive, of late, and if it were so easy to get out of them then "abusive relationships" woludn't be a thing.

omg stop with the Windows 11 whine articles.

omg stop with the Toms Hardware article whine comments.

What's ironic about this is it's a lot easier for you just not to read or comment on articles like this than it is for most Windows users to switch to a different OS.

It's fair for people to complain about Microsoft. That way, as they watch their marketshare dwindle, the might finally decide to make some business model changes that stop pushing people away. "The squeaky wheel gets the grease", as they say.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

I see. Nobody else is allowed to have an opinion.
🙄

 

[bit_user]

I see. Nobody else is allowed to have an opinion.
🙄

Of course they can. It's a forum, though. You can post anything within bounds, but you don't control what other people think about it or how they react.

I didn't flat-out disagree with the notion of gaming consoles - just provided some cases where it's useful to have a gaming-grade PC.

BTW, yours and PlaneInTheSky are the only posts I actually took issue with. My other replies were a response to someone replying to me and a suggestion.

 

[Friesiansam]

Some would call this a clickbaity, tabloid like article as well. I would be one of those people.

And I would agree with you. Sadly all websites owned by Future Publishing go the same way.

As for the subject of the article, I'm on W10 and I have all that nonsense turned off.

 

[kaalus]

Yes, you can still turn it off, but for how much longer? Your digital life is in the hands of some business manager at Microsoft, and relies on him being kind enough not to disable the "off" button. It's scary. It's unacceptable.

Linux, Linux, Linux. We need to get away from the corporate trash ruling our lives. This is not just a Microsoft problem. Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook - they cannot be allowed to put us against the wall with a choice of ads way or highway.

 

[bit_user]

Linux, Linux, Linux. We need to get away from the corporate trash ruling our lives. This is not just a Microsoft problem. Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook - they cannot be allowed to put us against the wall with a choice of ads way or highway.

Does anyone know if ChromiumOS has the same Google tie-ins as ChromeOS? My browser of choice is Firefox, but my secondary browser is Chromium (not Chrome), which is basically a Google-free version of the browser. So, I'm curious if ChromiumOS has similar benefits.

https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/​

Not asking for myself, but just in case there are some who like ChromeOS but want to avoid Google's snares.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

Thank you again Tom’s hardware for this article! Worked like a charm

 

[Colif]

In Win 11:

Click the Options icon at top right of the 'Search' window
Select Search Settings
Scroll down to More Settings
Turn this OFF

is that windows highlights? i don't get anything in search about news, so I must have turned it off months ago.
Can we have a way to edit what shows on the Widgets page? I would love to remove almost all of it... not that I really look at that tab. I don't care about the news they want to show me.

 

[kerberos_20]

is that windows highlights? i don't get anything in search about news, so I must have turned it off months ago.
Can we have a way to edit what shows on the Widgets page? I would love to remove almost all of it... not that I really look at that tab. I don't care about the news they want to show me.

mine doesnt show anyhing either, also its turned off, must have been long time ago as i dont remeber turing it off