A few months ago, users enrolled in the Insider program were able to test News and Interests for the first time. This new feature of Windows is a kind of news feed where we will see articles related to our interests, as well as the weather, sports results, the stock market, etc. This new bar appears just to the left of the system tray, and allows us to have the weather forecast in view at all times. As usual, this feature started reaching a very small number of users. But, now, it is available to everyone.
The latest cumulative quality update for Windows 10 finally enabled this new feature for all users . However, as it was an optional update for the operating system, and it is also not recommended to install this type of update, in the end it did not reach as many users either.
On Tuesday of this week, the second Tuesday of the month, or “Patch Tuesday,” Microsoft has released its cumulative security patches . These include the security fixes released for the operating system and the latest quality patches. As it is a security-related update, it is recommended to install it as soon as possible. And, therefore, the new “interest news” plugin has finally reached 100% of users .
News and Interests: a rather sloppy and improvable plugin
When Microsoft introduced this new feature, the truth is that it seemed interesting. Broadly speaking, it was a kind of Discover , the Google app that we have on Android and iOS phones, but for PC. However, in practice it leaves a lot to be desired. The articles it shows are not at all interesting or related to our tastes (although we block topics and pages they continue to appear) and the number of news sources to choose from leaves much to be desired.
Although Microsoft tries to fix these problems, the new news feed is already off to a bad start , and pun intended. And, therefore, it is already marked on the blacklist by users, who have started looking for a way to deactivate it from the moment it appeared on the taskbar without permission. Luckily, removing it from the desktop is very simple and we can do it in just a couple of seconds.
How to disable it
Microsoft has enabled this plugin by default to all users, without permission. And, given its little or no usefulness, many users are looking for how to deactivate it to recover the hijacked space in the operating system’s taskbar.
To remove News and Interests from the start bar, what we must do is click on any part of the task bar, select the section on news of interests, and click on the ” Disconnect ” option.
By checking this option, the plugin will automatically disappear from the Windows bar. If what we want is to make it smaller, we can also do it by choosing the option to show only the icon. And from here we can also reduce the updates of the news feed or allow it to be opened by hovering or just clicking.