WINDOWS 11 TAKE OUT THE TRASH

Microsoft is increasingly stuffing Windows 11 with cruft: tabloid news stories, AI assistants, needless apps. Barry Collins shows you how to streamline the operating system

Operating systems should just get out of the way. Increasingly, however, Windows 11 appears intent on getting in your face.

Perhaps emboldened by a decade of largely being left to its own devices by the competition authorities, Microsoft is increasingly testing consumers' patience by injecting more and more unwanted extras into Windows 11. Widget sidebars full of tabloid news stories, apps appearing on the Start menu, AI services being shoved into the limelight.

It's a frustrating battle for control of your own hardware. Microsoft sees Windows 11 as its territory; many consumers think otherwise. If you're among them, read on, because we're going to show you how to get a grip on Windows 11, how to curb Microsoft's worst excesses and how to run Windows as you'd like it. We'll even give you a couple of alternative OSes to consider if Microsoft has stretched your patience too far.

JUNK NEWS IN WIDGETS

The missed opportunity that are Windows 11 Widgets continue to infuriate rather than illuminate. With Microsoft's glacially slow approach to offering Widget space to third parties, it continues to stuff screen real estate with content from news channels, meaning you will often find your Widgets panel stuffed with utter drivel such as celebrity gossip or tabloid news stories that you never asked for.

There are two approaches to dealing with this problem: either try to clean the Widgets feed manually or dispense with them altogether.