Cease Home windows 11’s most intrusive advertisements with these 9 simple tweaks
Bear in mind again when Home windows 11 first got here out and Microsoft gave everybody a free move to improve? On the floor, it was a beneficiant transfer; surely, it was a ploy to lure us away from Home windows 10.
Clearly, if Microsoft was giving one thing away, it was going to come back with a catch. On this case, it’s all of the advertisements which are being added to Home windows 11, going above and past what we’ve seen in earlier variations. Thankfully, we are able to disable these advertisements… for now, no less than.
If you happen to’re fed up with all of the advertisements and proposals all through Home windows 11, there are many methods to push again. Listed here are the settings it’s good to flip off to ditch Home windows’ worst advertisements.
Additional studying: 13 essential Home windows settings to vary instantly
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The Begin menu has been fertile floor for Microsoft’s “Advisable” apps since Home windows 10, and it’s alive and nicely within the newest builds of Home windows 11. Thankfully, it’s simple to show off.
Navigate to Settings > Personalization > Begin, then search for the choice titled “Present suggestions for suggestions, shortcuts, new apps, and extra” and toggle it to Off.
Ditch Home windows notification advertisements
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I’m not a fan of notifications. I’ve sufficient bother concentrating on duties daily with out pop-ups and alerts distracting me — and the very last thing I want are advertisements disguised as essential notifications.
Let’s flip these off, lets? And whereas we’re at it, let’s take away these pesky full-screen “End organising” prompts, too.
Navigate to Settings > System > Notifications. Scroll right down to the underside the place you’ll discover Further settings. Click on to increase these choices, then uncheck the containers for “Get suggestions and solutions when utilizing Home windows,” “Counsel methods to get essentially the most out of Home windows and end organising this gadget,” and “Present the Home windows welcome expertise after updates and when signed in to point out what’s new and steered.” Phew, what a mouthful.
Cease steered advertisements in Settings
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Fed up with Microsoft’s “solutions” for Copilot and different options within the Settings app? You possibly can flip these off, too. Navigate to Settings > Privateness and Safety > Normal, then toggle the choice for “Present me steered content material within the Settings app” to Off.
Take away File Explorer advertisements
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OneDrive might not be one among our top-pick cloud backup providers, but it surely’s nonetheless fairly good and reasonably priced. The issue is, being bombarded with advertisements for it may be an enormous turn-off — and if you happen to’re like me, you’re most likely sick of these advertisements in File Explorer. Right here’s the way to change these off.
Open File Explorer and choose the three-dot menu within the actions toolbar. Choose Choices adopted by the View tab. Scroll down to close the underside of the checklist and search for “Present sync supplier notifications.” Make certain it’s unchecked, then choose OK.
Jon Martindale / IDG
If you happen to make use of Home windows’ widgets, you already know all too nicely that they usually attempt to push you in the direction of breaking tales, inventory updates, and different content material which may be irrelevant to you. To disable these, you may both flip off particular feeds or disable widgets completely.
To take away a person widget feed, choose the widget icon on the bottom-left of your display screen, then choose the cog icon on the top-right of the widget window. Choose Present or cover feeds and change the feed(s) to Off.
To take away widgets completely, right-click in your taskbar and choose Taskbar settings. Then, toggle “Widgets” to Off.
Disable producer bloatware advertisements
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If you happen to purchased your PC or laptop computer from a serious producer like Dell, Lenovo, or HP, there’s likelihood it got here preloaded with unsolicited apps (“bloatware”) you don’t need or want. If you happen to don’t wish to uninstall them altogether, you may no less than minimize down on notification spam.
Navigate to Settings > System > Notifications and look by the checklist of apps till you discover any named after your PC’s producer. Disable these advertisements by toggling these notifications to Off.
Typically they offer their apps names which are much less clearly figuring out. If you happen to spot any suspicious or uncommon apps, do a fast Google search on them to see in the event that they’re price disabling.
Block lock-screen and background advertisements
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The Home windows Highlight characteristic dynamically modifications your background and lock display screen photos to maintain your desktop feeling contemporary and attention-grabbing. However Microsoft has sometimes proven advertisements for varied video games with it, and the associated suggestions could be a little ad-like at occasions, too.
Sadly, the one approach to cease that for now could be to show off Home windows Highlight. If you happen to’d fairly resort to static photos that you simply change your self, right here’s what you are able to do:
Navigate to Settings > Personalization > Background. Then, subsequent to Personalize your background, use the drop-down menu to pick something aside from Home windows Highlight.
Additionally, navigate to Settings > Personalization > Lock Display. Then, subsequent to Personalize your Lock Display, use the drop-down menu to decide on any choice that isn’t Home windows Highlight.
Disguise the spotlight advertisements in Home windows search
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Ah, Home windows search, how I really like and detest thee. You’re good at discovering apps so long as I kind them out accurately, however I don’t want you to point out me advertisements and steered purchasing content material. Let’s flip that off.
Navigate to Settings > Privateness and safety > Search permissions. Scroll down till you discover “Present search highlights” and toggle it Off.
No extra customized advertisements
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Whereas all of the above settings will stop Microsoft from serving you as many advertisements inside Home windows itself, they received’t cease the working system from amassing your information to serve you customized advertisements sooner or later. You possibly can put a cease to that now in order that even when an advert does in some way get by, it received’t be extremely focused to you and your exercise.
Disable Home windows gadget utilization monitoring by navigating to Settings > Personalization > System Utilization and toggling Off all of the choices there.
You can too disable additional gathering of diagnostic information by navigating to Settings > Privateness and safety > Normal and toggling all of the choices there to Off as nicely.
Additional studying: All of the methods Home windows 11 collects your information
