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Microsoft is currently testing a change for Windows 11’s Settings app that concerns recommended and promoted content - ads, in short - and surprisingly, it’s an idea that won’t make you wince.
Windows Latest spotted that in preview builds of Windows 11 (in the Beta and Canary channels specifically), there’s a new dedicated ‘Recommendations & Offers’ page (which was previously titled as just a ‘General’ page, under the ‘Privacy & security’ section of the Settings app).
The new page will make it easier to manage what sort of adverts and recommendations Microsoft shows you in Windows 11, thanks to a couple of moves.
Firstly, the descriptions of the various options here relating to controlling ads and recommendations in one way or another have been made clearer, which is always good to see.
Secondly, we have a new option introduced to the revamped Recommendations & Offers page. (The other options remain the same as they were before, we should note - it’s just the descriptive text that’s changed, and small tweaks to the layout of the panel).
The new option is ‘Personalized offers’ but this isn’t actually new to Windows 11 as such, it’s just been shifted over from the ‘Diagnostic data’ page in Settings and renamed (it was called ‘Tailored experiences’ previously).
Switching ‘Personalized experiences’ on or off enables you to control whether you see personalized tips, ads, and recommendations based on your activity within Windows.
This particular choice will be a lot easier for Windows 11 users to see - and use - in the new ‘Recommendations & Offers’ page, rather than being hidden away in some obscure panel related to diagnostic data. So, that’s a definite plus point.
A change of tune from Microsoft? That seems doubtful
It isn’t known when we can expect this fine-tuning of the Settings app to arrive in Windows 11. For now, it’s not even showing up for all Windows 11 testers, as apparently it’s still rolling out.
Windows Latest speculates that this change could arrive with Windows 11 24H2, although the annual update is getting close to release now - so it could be a tight squeeze.
Whatever the case, this is at least a clear effort to consider the wishes of Windows 11 users in terms of them having better visibility and control of, the advertising preferences on their devices.
However, I don’t necessarily think this is Microsoft backing away from its aggressive stance on pushing advertising in many parts of the Windows 11 interface, and I don’t think this will do much to appease those people who are frustrated with Microsoft’s insistence on taking this path.
I’ll be happy to be proved wrong on this, but it’s hard to imagine a world where you could, say, turn off advertising altogether in Windows 11 - I can still dream, though.
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