Microsoft is starting to enable ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11 for all users. After testing these briefly with Windows Insiders earlier this month, Microsoft has started to distribute update KB5036980 to Windows 11 users this week, which includes “recommendations” for apps from the Microsoft Store in the Start menu.
Luckily you can disable these ads, or “recommendations” as Microsoft calls them. If you’ve installed the latest KB5036980 update then head into Settings > Personalization > Start and turn off the toggle for “Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more.” While KB5036980 is optional right now, Microsoft will push this to all Windows 11 machines in the coming weeks.
Microsoft’s move to enable ads in the Windows 11 Start menu follows similar promotional spots in the Windows 10 lock screen and Start menu. Microsoft also started testing ads inside the File Explorer of Windows 11 last year before disabling the experiment and saying the test was “not intended to be published externally.” Hopefully that experiment remains very much an experiment.
Me, on my Ubuntu machine: 🧐🤔😂😂😂😂😂😂
yeah you get ads in the terminal instead
It’s not an ad. Nobody is being paid to put that there. It’s a promotion.
Microsoft: “Ours is not an ads either, it’s a recommendation for a store app. We’re not advertising products you cannot install on your PC.”
It’s an ad because its shown as a condition of payment/something economical.
they’re advertising their paid product, don’t really see a difference semantically
It is very different.
advertisement /,ædvər’taɪzmənt/ noun a public promotion of some product or service
Your comment is hilarious because Ubuntu placed ads for Amazon in the equivalent of start menu way before Microsoft even had that idea. Ubuntu now displays ads for Ubuntu Pro (or Premium, whatever the name is) in the terminal. Ubuntu is the Windows wannabe of the Linux world.
Thankfully I stay away from the terminal whenever possible and I started using this thing after the ads from Amazon were no longer a thing xd