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Microsoft has gone too far: including a Game Pass ad in the Settings app ushers in a whole new age of ridiculous over-advertising (www.techradar.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Windows 11 is getting out of hand with its push for advertisments, frankly - remember the recent full-screen pop-up to persuade users to install Edge or other Microsoft services? Then another advertisment was placed in the Start menu, and now Microsoft has finally worn my temper thin - with a new Game Pass ad coming to the Settings app.

This will likely arrive in the July update for Windows 11, or at least it’s almost certain to do so. It was present in the latest preview update Microsoft just released for the OS (and quickly paused due to a bug, but that’s another story). It’s also worth noting that the ad has been present in earlier test versions of Windows 11.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

So, does PiHole work against this threat? I don’t believe I’ve seen an ad on Windows 11 yet on my desktop, but it’s firmly behind a PiHole and never leaves the house (because desktop)… so either I’m lucky, missing something, or it’s working.

I mean, I basically just boot it up to game and backup CDs to FLAC and such, so maybe I’m just missing things.

And Yes, as someone who has used linux since 1995, I know I can probably do those things in Linux at this point, but I couldn’t when I set it up and since it’s working I’ve got other things higher on my list to do.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

No, Pihole doesn't help.

I think the reason you say you haven't seen an ad on Windows is because the ads aren't the traditional ads like you see on a webpage.

When someone talks about an ad on Windows, they are referring to the Spotify app presinstalled in the Start Menu, the OneDrive prompt for backing up during setup, and the weather bug on the taskbar that brings up news if you click it.

You might think that a weather widget isn't an ad, but the idea is you click it, see a relevant news article, click the news article and you are taken to a traditional webpage with ads.