14 DAY TRIAL // Ads in Windows 10 is a topic that keeps coming back occasionally, but at the same time, it also keeps evolving, as Microsoft is experimenting with new ways to highlight other products.
More specifically, not a long time ago, many Windows 10 adopters referred to the app suggestions showing up in the Start menu as “ads,” especially because they pointed to third-party titles and not necessarily to apps developed by Microsoft itself.
Fast forward to this day and here’s Microsoft trying a different strategy. Small banners that show up in specific apps pre-loaded in Windows 10, also called core apps, advertise Microsoft apps, including Microsoft News and Microsoft Outlook for mobile devices.
It’s a new approach that has quickly become rather controversial, especially because many believe that Microsoft shouldn’t bring ads to a product that they paid.
While I’m not going to spend too much time discussing whether Microsoft has the right to introduce apps in its own Windows 10 apps, there are two things that must be said here. First, Windows has been pushed from a traditional platform to Windows as a Service, so it’s constantly evolving and receiving new updates. And second, customers pay for the right to use Windows, not to own the product.
Getting back to ads in Windows 10, let’s see two such examples that most people already spotted.
In Mail for Windows 10, the email client that’s offered as native in the OS, there’s now a small banner in the left sidebar that recommends users to download Outlook for Android. It doesn’t even matter if you already run Outlook for Android, and it doesn’t even matter if you’re logged in with the same Microsoft account as in Windows 10. The ad is still there, and there’s no way to remove it.
Weather for Windows 10 is another core app showing a small banner in the sidebar. This time, users are told to try out Microsoft News, and clicking the ad points them to a page where they are provided with instructions to download the app on their mobile devices. Again, there’s no method to stop the banner from showing up.
Opinions appear to be rather mixed on whether ads in Windows 10 are the right way to go.
Some think the current approach isn’t by any means intrusive, as the small banners can barely be observed. Our long-time reader @Buddahfan told me on Twitter:
“I use the Windows 10 Mail App at least several times a day. Evidently I am not very observant or maybe blind because I never noticed the very tiny banner in the lower left before I read an article about it. Then I had to put on my glasses to actually see it.”
On the other hand, Joshua Rob asked on mail if there’s any way to disable the ads because “Microsoft is playing it dirty and using Windows 10 to make its mobile apps seem more popular than they actually are.”
A discussion in the Feedback Hub, Microsoft’s feedback platform Windows 10, also calls for Microsoft to remove the Outlook mobile ad from Windows 10’s Mail client.
“Need an option to remove redundant ads - I have the phone app, I have the outlook on my phone, I use MS launcher - the windows 10 outlook ads on a small computer screen use real estate I need!” one user explains.
Microsoft has so far remained tight-lipped on these banners in Windows 10 core apps, so for the time being, it’s still not clear what the long-term plan actually is.
Are Windows 10 ads the right way to go moving forward or should Microsoft remove them? Let us know what you think in the box below.