Unpopular Windows 11 Start menu change could be back in the cards

Windows 11 speculation has once again turned to the topic of personalized recommendations within the Start menu, and it seems that a feature which Microsoft discarded may be back on the drawing board.

The feature in question is recommended websites, which could pop up alongside other existing recommendations at the bottom of the Start menu (commonly used apps, suggested files and so forth).

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You may recall that recommendations for websites to visit was an idea Microsoft was toying with in past preview builds from November 2022 onwards, but the idea was subsequently abandoned in build 25272, which landed in January 2023.

As PhantomOfEarth pointed out on Twitter, though, there’s evidence that recommended websites are making a return in test builds of Windows 11.

The feature is hidden – and was only unearthed using ViVeTool, a Windows configuration utility – but it’s certainly interesting to see it could potentially be making a comeback. Especially given that a fair few Windows 11 users were happy to see the back of this concept when Microsoft seemingly ditched it at the start of the year.


Analysis: Drawing the line with recommendations

What folks are concerned about with recommended websites is that Microsoft will use this as a vehicle for pushing third-party sites (effectively advertising).

It’s one thing to recommend files or existing apps on your PC that you might want to conveniently and quickly open, but it’s entirely another to start suggesting ‘useful’ websites. (Sites that’ll no doubt be opened in Edge if past Microsoft form is anything to go by – the software giant won’t likely pass up an opportunity to promote its browser).

What’s also noteworthy here is that this ties up with another hidden piece of the puzzle that was discovered in the latest preview version of Windows 11. Namely the ‘Recommended’ part of the Start menu panel being renamed as the ‘For you’ section, which as we mulled previously seems to suggest that further personalization of this element of the interface might be incoming – possibly including recommended website content? Maybe, just maybe…

Yes, we are treading deeper into speculative territory here, but with AI increasingly being pushed by Microsoft, it’s not difficult to believe that suggestions and recommendations are going to be in evidence across Windows 11 before too long.

The worrying bit is exactly where the line will be drawn regarding helping users and helping advertisers, certainly in the case of recommended websites. Fingers crossed that if recommended sites are again inbound, or about to be tested, that Microsoft can strike a well-considered balance.

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Windows 11 could be stealth-nerfing graphics cards – even the RTX 4090

You may recall that when Windows 11 first emerged, late in 2021, there was quite a fuss about VBS (Virtualization Based Security) slowing down games – and heads up, here comes some more controversy around this security feature.

Enter stage left (accompanied by a rumble of thunder, perhaps) a report from Tom’s Hardware, with our sister site having recently done a whole load of graphics card benchmarking, making a realization afterward: namely that VBS was turned on.

Here’s the thing, the senior editor at Tom’s who wrote the report, Jarred Walton, had previously disabled VBS, but at some point, a Windows 11 update (presumably) had reverted the feature and turned it back on without Walton noticing. (Windows 11 has VBS on by default now for new installations of the OS).

Walton further observes that Tom’s Editor-in-Chief, Avram Piltch, runs Windows 10 Home and hadn’t touched VBS since clean installing the OS last summer – but VBS was switched on with that system, too. Again, we can guess this happened via an update at some point (though note, we don’t know this for sure).

The long and short of it is, Microsoft wants this feature on for tighter Windows security – clearly – and is seemingly defaulting to turn it back on with all PCs (during major updates, most likely). But if users aren’t aware that VBS is being reenabled, and it can have a negative effect on gaming frame rates, well, that’s a bit of a pickle, to put it mildly.

Back at the launch of Windows 11, we heard tales of VBS hamstringing frame rates in some cases, with frame rate drops of up to 30%. Now, that turned out to be very much a worst-case scenario, with Tom’s doing its own testing at the time which revealed that the drop, on average, was more like 5% (still an appreciable decrease in frame rate).

Bearing that in mind, what kind of impact does VBS have these days? Walton was curious, so ran a battery of tests to find out using an Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics card (at different resolutions and graphics settings over 15 games).

Would VBS have any noticeable impact on gaming performance with a new processor – Intel’s Core i9-13900K – and a cutting-edge GPU?

Apparently, performance drops remain at about the same level as seen with previous testing a year and a half ago, with VBS taking performance down by around 5% overall. At higher resolutions, the impact was less: only 2% when running ultra settings in 4K.

There were some games that fared worse, as you might imagine. Tom’s Hardware highlights Microsoft Flight Simulator which experienced average frame rate drops of around 10%. Far Cry 6 and Control also exhibited 10% or so drops (at 1080p resolution with certain graphics settings, anyway). Other games were much less affected, or saw no difference at all in some cases.

In cockpit view of Microsoft Flight Simulator

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Analysis: A difficult choice, perhaps – but one we should get to make ourselves

It appears that VBS is still pretty much the same as it was when Windows 11 first launched in terms of slowing down games by an average of around a 5% drop in fps (frames per second).

Nothing has changed in the broad overarching picture, then, but what has changed is that Microsoft is now apparently turning on VBS post-updates, at least in some cases (and this could be true for Windows 10 systems as well as Windows 11).

That’s worrying, because the choice of 'VBS or no VBS' should be yours – and you shouldn’t have to worry about the operating system maker deciding that you mustn’t be without this security feature, and turning it on without your knowledge. At the very least, if this is the route Microsoft feels it must take, the move should be documented in patch release notes somewhere, or some effort made to inform the user.

The question of whether or not you should disable VBS is a thorny one. On the one hand, it’s a security feature, and clearly one Microsoft believes that you’d be silly not to use; hence the switching back on. Arguably, too, the impact is fairly minimal for a lot of games (as we can see with Tom’s testing).

However, there is some impact, and a 10% slowdown in outlying cases is quite a penalty to pay. Particularly for keen gamers who are obsessed with tuning their PCs to eke out every extra frame – a drop of a tenth in fps is akin to a lead weight being tied to that kind of enthusiast’s feet.

Furthermore, while VBS might be indisputably important in business PC scenarios, for the average home user, there are those who argue it’s overkill – and indeed probably not even necessary. Again, on the flip side though, Microsoft has pointed out in the past how VBS can be a useful extra line of defense against some malware attacks.

Ultimately, this decision comes down to you, the types of games you play, and whether you play them competitively – and also how cautious you might be on the security front, too. But frankly, what is rather mystifying here is Microsoft seemingly making these decisions for users, as is apparently the case now.

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WhatsApp could soon fix the most annoying thing about group chats

WhatsApp could soon be adding expiration dates to group chats so you no longer have to deal with so much clutter in your inbox.

If you open up your Whatsapp right now we expect you’ll find a backlog of defunct chats for group projects that have long been handed in, coordinating for events that happened years ago, and communicating with school friends you haven’t seen in a decade. Most of these you'd probably long forgotten about, with the unnecessary chats clogging up your smartphone’s storage with messages and images from chats you no longer need.

According to a leak, WhatsApp is set to get a feature that will help unclog your inbox called 'Expiring Groups' (via WaBetaInfo). If the feature is added you should find it on the group’s info page; using it you’ll then be able to set when you’ll be prompted to 'clean up' the group choosing either one day, one week, or a custom date. You could also remove the group’s expiration date.

Leaked WhatsApp menu showing Expiring Groups from WeBetaInfo

(Image credit: WaBetaInfo)

Based on the leaked screenshot, each user would have to set their own expiration date for the group, and it looks like WhatsApp won’t automatically delete the group. Instead, it will seemingly remind you that it might be time to leave the group or delete it, but the decision will be yours.

We’d suggest taking this news with a pinch of salt, though. WaBetaInfo has noted that the Expiring Groups feature is still in development – so not only is it apparently not ready for a full release, it’ll likely be some time before the feature makes its way to the WhatsApp beta. As such there’s a chance we’ll never see the feature launch – the developers could decide to scrap it – or by the time Expiring Groups launches, it could function differently.

You don’t have to wait for this Expiring Groups feature to launch if you want to remove old WhatsApp groups. In your Inbox long press on the chat you want to remove and then tap the menu button in the corner (the three dots) that appears, then Exit Group. Alternatively, you can Archive the chat so that it’s no longer in your Inbox but you can return to the chat later if you choose to.

You can also send self-destructing messages if you just want the chat's content to disappear, not the whole group chat.

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Microsoft could finally fix Windows 11’s strangest design choice

Windows 11 might finally allow users to shift the taskbar to different orientations on the desktop – as you can do with Windows 10 – rather than having it locked to the bottom of the screen, if a new clue spotted in preview is anything to go by.

Well-known Microsoft leaker Albacore posted on Twitter to show that with Windows 11 preview build 25309 it’s possible to do a bit of tweaking and get the taskbar to appear at the top of the screen.

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As the clip in the tweet shows, though, you end up with a broken implementation of the taskbar. Yes, it’s at the top, but when you click on icons in the bar, their respective functions appear floating at the bottom of the screen (where they’d normally be with the taskbar in its default position at the bottom).

In short, it looks like Microsoft is putting in the initial groundwork for a movable taskbar in preview right now, but it is very early stages indeed. Whether anything will come of this, well, we’ll have to keep our eyes peeled and fingers crossed – or those who want the ability to shift the taskbar around will, at any rate.


Analysis: A challenging change for Microsoft?

There might be people out there shouting at their monitors – why on earth would you want the taskbar at the top? However, this has actually been a very commonly requested feature addition for Windows 11, with plenty of users voting for the functionality to be brought to the desktop.

And choice is never a bad thing – some folks want a vertical taskbar, that runs down the side of the screen, too, as well as the potential to sling the bar up top. It’s really down to allowing for more customization of the core desktop UI, and keeping the same features as offered by Windows 10, which allows the bar to be shifted about if you wish.

As MS Power User – which spotted Albacore’s tweet – observes, though, this is something Microsoft has indicated it won’t pursue. Despite the clamor for a more mobile taskbar, Microsoft has said there are a “number of challenges” wrapped up in its implementation, and that the percentage of users wanting this change is small compared to other features. The latter assertion is certainly arguable from what we’ve seen, but there you go…

The long and short of previous statements, then, seems to be that Microsoft thinks it’d be a lot of effort for not much return – but the sighting of the ability to move the taskbar to the top, in however rudimentary a fashion, certainly gives hope to the idea that a movable taskbar is coming.

Until then, if you really want to mess around with the Windows 11 environment in this kind of way, you’ll need to resort to a third-party customization app. (It’s worth bearing in mind, though, that these apps have been causing serious trouble with the latest big Windows update, ‘Moment 2’).

Meanwhile, Microsoft recently introduced a nifty ability to the taskbar (in testing), namely the ability to kill a process right there on the bar (rather than having to mess around taking a trip to Task Manager).

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Warning: AMD graphics driver bug could brick your Windows 11 PC

Windows 11 (and 10) users are suffering from a really unpleasant bug that effectively bricks the PC, putting it in a boot failure loop, and it’s caused by the latest versions of AMD’s graphics driver, the company has confirmed.

PC World reported on this one (via Tom’s Hardware), specifically executive editor Brad Chacos who was unfortunate enough to experience the bug on his gaming PC.

The problem has been found in AMD’s Adrenalin 23.2.1 driver, and the most recent 23.2.2 driver, and leaves the user with a corrupted system.

The occurrence of this glitch is rare, though, and it depends on two factors. Firstly, when installing the new AMD GPU driver, the option for a clean installation (‘factory reset’) must be selected. Then you also need to be unlucky enough for Windows to kick in and perform an update in the background while installing the Adrenalin driver.

Due to the fact that it’s not likely for Windows Update to decide to fire up just at the wrong moment, it seems the bug is rare, which is at least something.

However, this can happen when Windows is set to update automatically (rather than scheduling an update), and if it does, it appears to be the case that the two update processes happening simultaneously (with a clean AMD driver install, as noted) causes severe havoc.

Chacos was left in a situation where instead of Windows booting, a Blue Screen of Death error came up, then the computer rebooted, and the same thing happened again, in a loop. Urgh…

AMD told PC World: “We have reproduced an issue that can occur in an extremely small number of instances if a PC update occurs during the installation of AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition, and we are actively investigating.

“We recommend users ensure all system updates are applied or paused before installing the driver, and that the ‘Factory Reset’ option is unchecked during the AMD driver installation process. We are committed to resolve issues as quickly as possible and strongly encourage users to submit issues with AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition via the Bug Report Tool.”


Analysis: Better safe than sorry

So, as AMD suggests, if you are going to update your graphics driver, ensure you don’t go for that clean installation option (‘Factory Reset’) until AMD has cleared up this situation. Also, make sure any Windows driver updates are already applied (or updates are paused) before you go ahead with installing the AMD driver.

Following either of those rules should mean you’re going to be fine, but ensuring both are observed is obviously the safest thing to do in this situation. And caution definitely seems to be the right approach here, given what happens to PCs that get hit by this particular bug.

The way out of the boot failure loop, as Chacos points out, is to get into Windows recovery mode, but doing so apparently involves a tricky bit of timing. You need to hit the PC’s power button in the fleeting moment between BIOS options disappearing and the Windows loading circle appearing – and it took Chacos no fewer than 15 attempts before getting the timing right. The message is to persevere, but again, this is another unpleasant aspect of this bug.

While rare, given the gravity of this gremlin, hopefully AMD (and Microsoft) will be working to quickly clear up this one. It’s not exactly clear where the fault lies here, but as Tom’s and PC World point out, this has been a problem for a while now – and there’s no way Windows should be kicking in an update, when another update is already underway, because clearly that’s a recipe for chaos.

Fingers crossed for a swift resolution, then, and we wouldn’t blame folks for not taking the workaround presented and simply holding off installing the new AMD driver for a while until a full fix is implemented. As Chacos also observes, his PC was updated to the latest version of Windows 10 before going ahead with the Adrenalin driver installation – it may have been the case that something else, like the Game Bar, just happened to run a conflicting update.

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This cringeworthy Microsoft Teams feature could soon be forced upon you

Microsoft is readying an update for collaboration platform Teams that will allow admins to change the way meetings are displayed for all attendees.

As explained in a new entry to the company’s product roadmap, meeting hosts will soon be given the option to enable Together Mode for all participants. The update is still under development, but should take effect by the end of May.

Launched in the summer of 2020, Together Mode for Microsoft Teams brings all attendees into a shared virtual background, with the goal of “making it feel like you’re sitting in the same soom with everyone else”.

Together Mode

Together Mode in Microsoft Teams. (Image credit: Microsoft)

Together Mode in Microsoft Teams

Although the ambition behind Together Mode is a noble one, the execution leaves plenty to be desired. In this writer’s opinion, the virtual background filled with floating heads only serves to emphasize the fact a meeting is not, in fact, taking place in-person.

While Microsoft’s AI system does a decent enough job of cutting out each person’s home office background, and some people will get on with the feature better than others, there’s an welcome strangeness to the final result.

The idea that meeting hosts should be able to dictate that everyone uses the feature is particularly strange. While there’s something to be said for operating on a level playing field, some users are bound to find the feature more helpful (or unhelpful) than others, which makes a blanket policy counterproductive.

However, not all of Microsoft’s attempts to introduce variety to the way Teams meetings are displayed have been quite so divisive.

Last year, the company rolled out a series of new presenter modes designed to help Teams users flex their presentation style to the occasion. Standout Mode, for example, seats the presenter’s video feed in front of the slide deck, while Reporter Mode places content above the shoulder in the style of a news broadcast.

The features were an example of the way in which virtual backgrounds and clever positioning of content can legitimately improve the quality of video meetings, delivering on Microsoft’s stated ambition to “help presenters deliver content more professionally and offer meeting participants dynamic experiences”.

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This cringeworthy Microsoft Teams feature could soon be forced upon you

Microsoft is readying an update for collaboration platform Teams that will allow admins to change the way meetings are displayed for all attendees.

As explained in a new entry to the company’s product roadmap, meeting hosts will soon be given the option to enable Together Mode for all participants. The update is still under development, but should take effect by the end of May.

Launched in the summer of 2020, Together Mode for Microsoft Teams brings all attendees into a shared virtual background, with the goal of “making it feel like you’re sitting in the same soom with everyone else”.

Together Mode

Together Mode in Microsoft Teams. (Image credit: Microsoft)

Together Mode in Microsoft Teams

Although the ambition behind Together Mode is a noble one, the execution leaves plenty to be desired. In this writer’s opinion, the virtual background filled with floating heads only serves to emphasize the fact a meeting is not, in fact, taking place in-person.

While Microsoft’s AI system does a decent enough job of cutting out each person’s home office background, and some people will get on with the feature better than others, there’s an welcome strangeness to the final result.

The idea that meeting hosts should be able to dictate that everyone uses the feature is particularly strange. While there’s something to be said for operating on a level playing field, some users are bound to find the feature more helpful (or unhelpful) than others, which makes a blanket policy counterproductive.

However, not all of Microsoft’s attempts to introduce variety to the way Teams meetings are displayed have been quite so divisive.

Last year, the company rolled out a series of new presenter modes designed to help Teams users flex their presentation style to the occasion. Standout Mode, for example, seats the presenter’s video feed in front of the slide deck, while Reporter Mode places content above the shoulder in the style of a news broadcast.

The features were an example of the way in which virtual backgrounds and clever positioning of content can legitimately improve the quality of video meetings, delivering on Microsoft’s stated ambition to “help presenters deliver content more professionally and offer meeting participants dynamic experiences”.

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Microsoft could soon improve this divisive Windows 11 feature

Windows 11 looks like it might soon support third-party widgets, as another clue that they could be imminent has popped up courtesy of an eagle-eyed Twitter user.

FireCube did some digging and spotted that the widget manifest has been updated to reference downloading widgets – tiny apps that provide at-a-glance info, such as the current weather, or local traffic – from the Microsoft Store.

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The text informing users that they can “download new widgets and widget updates in Microsoft Store” is another piece of evidence that the eventual plan is to let developers put their third-party widgets in the Store, and allow Windows 11 users to download whatever they want.

The widgets panel would then be more useful, of course, with a bigger range of options and plenty more scope for customization, compared to the current situation where people can only use Microsoft’s own widgets in the panel.

As Windows Central, which spotted this, points out, its own Zac Bowden – a prolific source of Microsoft leaks – has previously said that the widget panel is expected to be getting third-party efforts, plus new features, and indeed that developers have already been briefed as to how third-party widgets will function. Previous leaks have pointed to third-party widgets being inbound, too.


Analysis: Expanding the widget panel in more ways than one

Bowden made those comments in December 2021, four months ago now, and with this latest spotting of a nugget of evidence that Microsoft is preparing to implement third-party widgets, it seems a firm enough possibility that they will debut at some point in 2022.

Would that be with the big H2 2022 (Sun Valley 2) update? Maybe, but given that Microsoft has been adding stuff to Windows 11 as and when it likes so far this year – witness the recent arrival of some big interface changes outside of major feature updates – then maybe this clue turning up now is a sign we could be installing third-party widgets in the OS sooner rather than later.

As for the other plans Microsoft has for the widget panel, at its recent Windows 11 reveal, we did catch a glimpse of a full-screen panel; so that could be in the pipeline too (and it’d provide more screen real-estate to populate with third-party widgets).

The widget panel is, of course, a divisive feature, and some folks really don’t appreciate it, viewing it as a rather pointless element of the UI. Its usefulness is certainly limited in its current form, being restricted to Microsoft services (like OneDrive, for example, and the likes of MSN weather).

Opening up the ability to add a huge range of new widgets from all over the shop would certainly help to make the panel a more compelling feature for Windows 11, and markedly improve the perception of this part of the interface.

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This Google Chrome challenger could be the best browser for private surfing

In addition to its search engine and mobile browser, DuckDuckGo has announced the beta launch of DuckDuckGo for Mac with DuckDuckGo for Windows coming soon.

Just like its mobile app, DuckDuckGo for Mac is an all-one-privacy solution for everyday web browsing that doesn’t require complicated settings to protect your online privacy and data.

Alongside its built-in private search engine, the company’s new browser for desktop also features a number of useful security features including a powerful tracker blocker, new cookie pop-up protection, a Fire Button for one-click data clearing, email protection and more, all free of charge.

DuckDuckGo for Mac also ensures you navigate to the HTTPS version of websites more often with its built-in Smarter Encryption. Meanwhile, the company’s tracker blocker prevents users from being exposed to third-party scripts that could try to access their data.

DuckDuckGo for Mac Logins

(Image credit: DuckDuckGo)

A browser designed to protect your privacy

Unlike Incognito mode in Google Chrome which isn’t actually private, DuckDuckGo for Mac is intended to be used as an everyday browser that truly protects user privacy though it also includes other features you’d expect from a modern browser such as password management, tab management, bookmarks and more.

At the same time, DuckDuckGo for Mac is already faster than Chrome using the Motion Mark 1.2 benchmark and since it blocks trackers, the browser uses around 60 percent less data. DuckDuckGo for Mac is able to achieve these high speeds by using Apple’s WebKit rendering engine which is the same one used by Safari.

CEO and founder of DuckDuckGo, Gabriel Weinberg provided further insight on the built-in privacy protection in the company’s new browser for Mac in a statement to TechRadar Pro, saying:

“At DuckDuckGo, we make privacy simple. For too long people have been made to believe that privacy online means significant tradeoffs, but that doesn't need to be the case. Like our popular mobile app, DuckDuckGo for Mac is an all-in-one privacy solution for everyday browsing with no complicated settings, just a clean, seamless private experience, plus some other cool features we think people will love.”

To join the DuckDuckGo for Mac beta, interested users can join the private waitlist by downloading the DuckDuckGo mobile app, heading to settings and opening DuckDuckGo for Desktop from the “More from DuckDuckGo” section.

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This Google Chrome challenger could be the best browser for private surfing

In addition to its search engine and mobile browser, DuckDuckGo has announced the beta launch of DuckDuckGo for Mac with DuckDuckGo for Windows coming soon.

Just like its mobile app, DuckDuckGo for Mac is an all-one-privacy solution for everyday web browsing that doesn’t require complicated settings to protect your online privacy and data.

Alongside its built-in private search engine, the company’s new browser for desktop also features a number of useful security features including a powerful tracker blocker, new cookie pop-up protection, a Fire Button for one-click data clearing, email protection and more, all free of charge.

DuckDuckGo for Mac also ensures you navigate to the HTTPS version of websites more often with its built-in Smarter Encryption. Meanwhile, the company’s tracker blocker prevents users from being exposed to third-party scripts that could try to access their data.

DuckDuckGo for Mac Logins

(Image credit: DuckDuckGo)

A browser designed to protect your privacy

Unlike Incognito mode in Google Chrome which isn’t actually private, DuckDuckGo for Mac is intended to be used as an everyday browser that truly protects user privacy though it also includes other features you’d expect from a modern browser such as password management, tab management, bookmarks and more.

At the same time, DuckDuckGo for Mac is already faster than Chrome using the Motion Mark 1.2 benchmark and since it blocks trackers, the browser uses around 60 percent less data. DuckDuckGo for Mac is able to achieve these high speeds by using Apple’s WebKit rendering engine which is the same one used by Safari.

CEO and founder of DuckDuckGo, Gabriel Weinberg provided further insight on the built-in privacy protection in the company’s new browser for Mac in a statement to TechRadar Pro, saying:

“At DuckDuckGo, we make privacy simple. For too long people have been made to believe that privacy online means significant tradeoffs, but that doesn't need to be the case. Like our popular mobile app, DuckDuckGo for Mac is an all-in-one privacy solution for everyday browsing with no complicated settings, just a clean, seamless private experience, plus some other cool features we think people will love.”

To join the DuckDuckGo for Mac beta, interested users can join the private waitlist by downloading the DuckDuckGo mobile app, heading to settings and opening DuckDuckGo for Desktop from the “More from DuckDuckGo” section.

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