Did you know that pigs eat people (opens in new tab) “Much more often than people expected?” If not, you must have heard the important breaking news that a priest “died” in 2016. went to hell (opens in new tab) The devil is back to let the rest know that he likes playing Liana’s Umbrella song over and over again. If you haven’t noticed these important news articles, chances are you haven’t spent enough time using the Windows search box and widgets section.
Article courtesy of Microsoft’s MSN Content Network. This network delivers content from hundreds of his web publishers. Some have a good reputation and some don’t. Full Disclosure: Our parent company, Future Plc, has syndicated deals with MSN, and many sites, including Tom’s Hardware, occasionally publish articles on their networks. The problem here, however, is not that MSN syndicates content, but that it often pushes the equivalent of the Weekly World News table of contents to the Windows operating system, which is difficult to avoid.
Go to the Windows 11 or 10 search box and click it, and you’ll see a bunch of news headlines, perhaps with the intent of searching for apps or documents on your local drive. Depending on who you are (and perhaps what you’ve clicked on before), it might feel like you’re looking at magazine racks in a supermarket checkout line.
If you choose to click the weather icon on the left or right side of your taskbar (or just choose to hover over it), you’ll see even more headlines with larger pictures and details. I wanted the full forecast for today when I clicked, but instead I got the next important headline.
Don’t get me wrong. This 26-year-old spent $50,000 to look like an alien (It’s 2017, but it was in the news last week) or 9 foot “man-eating” alligator Who came to someone’s door as much as the next person. However, such information should not be provided as part of the operating system. Available on website and social media.
Windows is the world’s most popular operating system and people rely on it to get things done. Throwing embarrassing, low-quality news into utilities such as the search box is an unwelcome distraction, especially for those who are easily distracted. You can turn off “search highlighting” for the search box, but they are enabled by default and you can’t remove all headings from the weather widget. You can turn off the widget completely, but then the temperature and precipitation will not show up correctly in your taskbar.
misleading
A few weeks ago, I saw much worse than a Windows search box distraction. It was a series of dangerous conspiracy theories about former NIH Director Dr. Anthony Fauci. I’m not here to discuss Dr. Fauci’s contribution, nor should I discuss the Windows search box.
On March 9, the “Trending News of the Web” section of the search box featured a photo of Fauci with the headline “Hiding the truth about COVID.”However, when I click through true story, the headline itself is not so accusatory, reading, “Fauci says he’s always ‘honest’ when questions about COVID’s origins are raised.” I gave the impression that Dr. Fauci was lying, but the linked article only pointed out that Dr. Fauci was being criticized by politicians who thought he was not telling the truth. That’s a big difference.
I wrote a Microsoft PR about this and asked how it happened. Maybe it was my complaint, maybe I was just unlucky, but he hasn’t seen a COVID conspiracy theory article in his feed since. But Windows is still sending me (and probably you) tons of garbage content that makes the supermarket tabloids blush.
Your feed of content depends on what you click on and what Microsoft knows about you and your preferences. For some people I’ve spoken to, the content is boring and unnecessary, but not necessarily National Enquirer-worthy. For example, Editor-in-Chief Matt Safford got “I’m Preparing for Doomsday with a Barn Full of Nuclear War Supplies” as one of his recent recommended articles.
of hell article It’s been over a month since I first saw it and it’s still popping up in my feed. I think this is probably because someone, the creator, keeps changing the dateline to make it look like a new date. It was originally from Popular Mechanics, which I always thought was better than this sort of thing, but it’s the laziest form of non-journalism I’ve seen in a while. Apparently someone posted a TikTok video claiming to have gone to hell, and the author of Popular Mechanics thought it would be a good idea to write about random people posting ridiculous TikToks.
All of these low quality articles also appear on MSN.com and by default on the Microsoft Edge New Tab screen. We expect to see garbage content and promotions on social media and the web. But when it gets built into his UI of the operating system, it becomes a bridge too far.
Microsoft should either disable these distracting headlines by default, or stop charging for their operating system and call it “free with ads.” After all, the company wants to pay PC builders $139 for a Windows 11 Home license, but it’s trying to make money by having the same users click on low-quality MSN content and earn money from ads. Of course, you’ll soon find out how to get Windows 11 for free or cheap.
Both Windows 10 and Windows 11 have a “Focus Assist” mode, but even with it on, the OS is still trying to send you down a stupid rabbit hole. , I was distracted a few times, but the good news is what I know now. “The horrible truth about removing mold from bread.”
How to stop distracting headlines in Windows
Fortunately, Windows allows you to turn off news headlines to some extent. By “somewhat” I mean that you can turn them off in the search box and Edge’s new tab page, but you can block only certain news sources in the widget board, or remove the weather icon altogether. However, I like having the local temperature displayed in the taskbar.
Disable search highlighting (from search box)
“Search Highlights” are MSN promotions that appear when you first click the search box and don’t search for anything. Headings aren’t as distracting as widgets here. When I took the screenshot below, it was pushing Ireland’s tourism links.
You can disable search highlighting in Windows 10 by: right click on the search box and Uncheck Search -> Show Search Highlight.
In Windows 11, Go to search permissions menu You can find and run it in settings.then toggle “Show search highlights” [その他の設定]to turn it off.
A widget board is a series of headings and other things that appear when you click or hover over the weather icon on your taskbar. In Windows 11, by default, just moving the pointer over an icon reveals the board, which takes up a lot of screen real estate.
You can disable the Widget Board completely, but doing so will prevent the weather icon from appearing, and you may see inventory and traffic information in your taskbar.
Widgets can be disabled right click on the taskbar and Select taskbar settingsWith Windows 10 you can: Set “Show news and interests” to off. On Windows 11, Set “Widgets” to off.
If you just want to limit the amount of crappy or misleading headlines on your widget board, you can do so by: Click “…” story block menu and Select “Hide the following articles” Or “There are few stories like this.” When you hide an article from annoying publications, you will never see the headline again from that particular source.
However, in an ideal world, Microsoft would disable all news headlines and only allow you to see the weather forecast.
Remove news from new tab in Edge
If you use the Edge browser, you’ll notice that by default, every time you open a blank new tab, you’ll see a lot of distracting headlines. It’s easy to just have wallpaper and a blank tab search box.
just Click on the settings gear in the upper right corner Select “Content Off” Under the content menu.
Note: As with all editorials, the opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer, not of Tom’s Hardware as a team.
