Microsoft has now rolled out the Windows 10 'News and Interests' news feed to everyone and enabled it by default on the taskbar, causing many people to seek how to disable it.
In April, Microsoft began rolling out a new taskbar news feed feature called 'News and Interests' that displays the local weather on the taskbar. When clicked, a pane will open that displays various widgets containing the current news, weather, stock prices, and traffic information for your location.
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Starting with last month's Windows 10 preview cumulative updates, Microsoft enabled News and Interests for all users running Windows 10 1909 and later.
However, as most Windows users do not install the preview updates, many Windows 10 devices did not get the new feature until Microsoft released yesterday's June 2021 Patch Tuesday mandatory cumulative updates.
In response to the mass install, BleepingComputer has seen numerous tweets and posts [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] where people ask how to disable the widget or are confused about why it is being displayed.
Others have also reported that the News and Interests feature still has previously reported bugs that mess up the display of the taskbar and its notification icons.
"Rebooted and it happened again so that didn't help, most likely cause of my taskbar bugging out is this "new" weather widget I got with this update, which I've already turned off, but the fact that this still happens... does anyone know of a fix for this?," a user posted on Reddit.
The good news is that if you are not a fan of the News and Interests feature, you can quickly turn it off.
To disable the News and Interests widget, right-click on an empty portion of your taskbar, select 'News and interests,' and then click on 'Turn off.'
Once you disable the News and Interests feature, it will not turn back on unless you enable it again.
Microsoft is asking for feedback regarding this feature and has been actively resolving reported issues. To leave feedback, click on the weather icon, then click on ... menu, and then select Feedback.
Comments
otalado - 2 years ago
I for one hate that sort of 'features'. I may be the only one, but as far as I am concerned MS should NEVER force-feed us with such apps. What's next? Put Visual Studio 2019 on a taskbar for everybody? Let users decide if they'll use it or not! And of course, in traditional MS style, they mucked it! On five of my seven machines, the system tray goes south when I disable the damned thing - and no way to uninstall this crap!
Will MS ever learn something?
herbman - 2 years ago
"Will MS ever learn something"?
The answer is a resounding 'NO' .
MS is a cancer and force feeds MSN fake news ( NBC ) which is even worse than CBS and ABC believe it or not.
They believe in the liberal ideology which means 'We know what's best for you' and you the individual has ZERO say in the matter .
It's all about CONTROL.
buddy215 - 2 years ago
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt. — ABRAHAM LINCOLN
vostok1 - 2 years ago
This update has finally pushed me to abandon Windows and switch to Linux. If a Chinese OS added a "feature" that shows the latest Chinese news, you should call it CCP propaganda, right? Then why is it okay for Microsoft to do it? Why don't we recognize this "feature" for what it is, a propaganda tool? I really hope that Microsoft's days are numbered.
Wolverine 7 - 2 years ago
Thumbs down on that one then in guessing :-)..
david-1 - 2 years ago
My recommendation for Microsoft is to add a small form that allows the new user to vote: should my OS provider force a new and wonderful feature on me OR should it announce the feature on the Web and wait until I request it to install it? Having a new feature show up suddenly is very alarming behavior in an OS, and instantly makes one wonder about having a virus.
steve.tabler - 2 years ago
From the get-go, the Microsoft goal for Windows 10 was to monotenize the desktop, selling advertising feeds like Google does on all their stuff. Microsoft said so when the first _shipped_ Windows 10 and that was enough for me to never want to touch it.
At least, they aren't using OAN or Fox as the news feed, and they haven't put in a donate-to-the-candidate-you-don't-like button disguised as a red X in a corner. Yet.
david-1 - 2 years ago
Actually, for me, turning the feature off caused various strange lines to be drawn on top of the task bar icons, such as the clock and current language icons. I had to turn the feature back on again to eliminate the displayed garbage. Anyone else have this problem?
Eagleizer - 2 years ago
"Actually, for me, turning the feature off caused various strange lines to be drawn on top of the task bar icons, such as the clock and current language icons. I had to turn the feature back on again to eliminate the displayed garbage. Anyone else have this problem?"
Yes, read my other post.
ramaekle - 2 years ago
No, No, No. I did not ask for it. I do not like it. I do not want it. I don't want to disable it. I want it gone. I cannot wait for someone to figure out and tell the world how to remove it completely from our computers. As has been pointed out, software that is pushed onto my system is a virus. Microsoft, stop deciding what I do and do not want on my computer.
Eagleizer - 2 years ago
Turning it OFF messes up my TaskBar. All icons and Clock vanish. I have been on MS support for 7 hours and 4 different agents, and nothing have been solved. They all gave up. Who are these idiots who push these useless and bugged things? I use my browser for online stuff. The last thing I need is a widget that clog up my already busy interface. MS have done nothing good since Win XP. :(
JNinMN - 2 years ago
"Once you disable the News and Interests feature, it will not turn back on unless you enable it again."
Not true! I turned it off, but it came back!
Psyllicon - 2 years ago
I maintain multiple 'family' machines remotely, and now have THREE that have had the Taskbar Icons *(aka: systray) totally corrupted by this Update.. I cannot say that others have the same issue, but ALL THREE of the faulted systems I work on have the same issue and resolution *(albeit an incomplete Resolution - I would prefer to Un-Install the News&Interests entirely)
I can Cause the rendering issue and Correct it simply by using Turn Off -- RtClick taskbar>News&Interests>Turn Off -- if the icons are not scrambled immediately, just unlock the taskbar and drag it to the Side and back to the Bottom of the screen.. that scrambles them EVERY time~
Unfortunately, the 'fix' is to go back and 'Show..' the News&Interests widget.. which instantly clears the error, but leaves Big Brother in the Systray~!
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe this new 'Widget' is scraping information to know what I am 'Interested' in, and certainly using Geo-Location because the Weather display is Localized~
Anyone Else see a Class-Action coming?
SuspiciousMinds - 2 years ago
Perhaps this has already happened -- I don't read German, and so can't be sure -- but someone needs to get this added to the O&O ShutUp10 requested features list as a priority in development. Blocking the feed from coming in at all is probably the way to go, as opposed to attempting to turn it off once it is incoming. Unfortunately, it was published in early days for Win-10 that Win Update was engineered so as to ignore the Hosts File blocking maneuver. Some alternate fix that actually is effective will be required.
In the meantime, it might be worth checking at Wilders Security, or hacker-ish places like nsaneforums or MyDigitalLife to see if anyone has found another way to dispatch this intruder.
Something like Wireshark should be able to pinpoint the source(s) of that feed. I don't suppose MS would have been so remiss here as to allow us to zap this feed with a rule in Windows Firewall ? I've also wondered about uninstalling the recent Win-10 updates. Back in Win-7, we used to be able to uninstall specific, individual KBs. Nowadays though they mostly deliver *baskets* of updates ("Rollups", or whatever), where you cannot pick and choose. Anyway, there must be some avenues to explore on this.
CraigR2 - 2 years ago
I agree with many of you: I do not want this turned off, I want it removed. I did not install it. I was not asked if I wanted it installed. But, let's take this a step further, this is a web-based applet (or as Microsoft refers to it as "a feature"). Being web-based it also has installed cookies on your computer. Cookies that track and monitor what you are doing on your computer so that you receive the news feeds that best match your interests. I may be mistaken, but I believe this is illegal based upon many US and International Privacy Laws in that Microsoft installed these cookies without receiving your active consent, and the cookies track and monitor activity (forget the additional exposure it creates on your computer). The fact that you are not permitted to opt out is also a violation of US and International law. Are Class Action Lawsuits the only way these companies pay attention? I am so frustrated with Apple and Microsoft both acting as if they can do whatever they want on computers they do not own. All I want it for bugs to be fixed and security holes plugged. If I want anything new added, then let ME decide when and if I want it added. Does Microsoft honestly believe forcing this web-based "feature" is not a violation if the GDPR?
david-1 - 2 years ago
Cookies are small pieces of information that may accompany any Web page retrieval. They are used by most Web page designers to add a little persistent information to the normally "stateless" web page fetching operation supported by your browser.
In and of themselves, cookies have no malicious effect and are not an invasion of privacy, mostly because they are stored on your own computer, not on a remote server. In fact, you can look at the content of your cookies and/or delete them as you wish through your browser.
While I disagree that Microsoft has the right to push information and advertising onto the desktop of Windows, the for-a-price operating system they provide, I agree with everyone's use of cookies because it makes for a better and more useful Web experience.
Since cookies store your own information on your own computer, they cannot be a violation of GDPR or any other laws.
There is much ignorance about cookies, because most people are not Web experts. So vague scary information has been generated and persists in our society about cookies. But it is only one of several methods of providing Web persistence for end users, and it is a method that has built-in security safeguards. So it is peculiar that this one method has been the subject of so much raving on the Web, while the others are used as well.
As a software engineer with 50 years of experience, I raise my lone voice against the prevalent ignorance in an attempt to keep conversations such as this one factual and reality-based. Your opposition to the new News and Interests "feature" will have much more power when it is not associated with ignorant raving.
And by the way, Microsoft have appeared to have pushed out another update that fixes the "garbage display" generated by its initial "feature". So, at least it has fixed its own bug. Now they need to withdraw "News and Interests" entirely. It should always have been optional (opt-in), from the beginning.
SuspiciousMinds - 2 years ago
O&O ShutUp10 did address this issue with their latest edition, but I don't know if the fix is as thorough as the one here:
https://www.askvg.com/tip-completely-disable-and-remove-news-and-interests-feature-in-windows-10/
As CraigR2 said, turning it Off was insufficient, I wanted it entirely GONE.
4PawsMom84 - 2 years ago
Sounds easy to fix but when I right-click on the taskbar I don't get the same menu as you have shown. There is no News and Interests option. What am I doing wrong?
david-1 - 2 years ago
You are clicking in the wrong place in the taskbar. There are several different menus, depending on exactly where you click. I'm not sure this is the most intelligent user design. If you have a clock in your taskbar, right-click on the time and you should see the News and Interests item.