Ads are an unfortunately annoying side effect of the internet these days. No one outside of a few businesses likes them but given that so many services available on the internet are available free of charge, you kind of expect there to be some form of advertising. The good news at least is that you can at least live in comfort knowing that you shouldn’t be flooded with ads on your PC once you’ve shut your browser down.

Sadly, it appears that is about to change for Windows users as according to a news article on The Verge, Microsoft has started including advertisements in both their mail and calendar apps that are built into Windows 10. Microsoft did trial this idea out not so long ago, but it appears they are now ready to roll it out to more users with the code that enables this already embedded in the apps without any way to remove this.

This could create quite a different experience for many users who will now get ads despite having actually paid for Windows. Yes, Google has been doing this for years through Android and its many default apps, but they gave that OS away for free. These ads will not feature in Windows itself but considering they come with Windows by default, it gives the feeling that Microsoft is trying to advertise and yet charge a premium for tier product as well. Admittedly, these are free apps and ads won’t feature in the paid-for Office versions of these applications, which most companies use, but it still smacks with over-commercialization anyway.

Microsoft has suggested that users submit formal feedback on the decision if they want the ads to disappear and so hopefully users do that and can get the company to rescind its decision. Don’t get me wrong I don’t believe we should use free apps without expecting some form of advertising, but then don’t include those apps in your operating system by default.

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