It is a number of months since Microsoft launched the Windows 11 operating system, which officially took over the baton from Windows 10 in October 2021. However, this does not mean that the operating system is completely finished, but further development of both new and existing features continues. Most are first tested by users in Windows Insider programs, where an experimental feature recently appeared by mistake.
When Windows enthusiast Florian Beaubois researched the latest trial version of Windows 11, he discovered that the File Manager tool Explorer was equipped with an advertising banner. The finding was published on Twitterwhere an image shows a relatively narrow field below the Explorer search bar prompting users to try Microsoft Editor.
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In another statement The Verge Microsoft’s responsible for the Windows Insider program, Brandon LeBlanc, announces that the feature was not intended to be published externally. According to LeBlanc, the banner was a highly experimental feature that would have been completely disabled.
This is not the first time that Windows has experimented with advertising in Explorer. Most recently in 2017, a similar experiment was done with Explorer in Windows 10, this time with advertising for the cloud service One Drive. Like the advertising banner that Beaubois discovered, it was possible to shut down the advertising and deactivate the extension completely, but the increase was met with criticism.
Neither Windows 11 nor previous versions are completely ad-free at the moment. For example, users can get ads in Windows built-in applications and on the lock screen. It is not clear whether the function is something that can be tested more or introduced in the future.
Do you think advertising similar to the example in the picture is okay in Windows Explorer, or should it be completely ad-free?
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