How to Remove Annoying News Widgets From Windows 11

Good news! Microsoft has finally made it possible to use the Widget Board on Windows 11 without being subjected to an onslaught of clickbait news articles.

Windows 11, by default, shows you a bunch of "news" articles when you click the widget icon, the thing on the left-hand side of the taskbar that usually shows you the weather. This block of news articles was, until recently, next to impossible to disable. I am not exaggerating when I say the news articles selected seemed designed to disrupt anything resembling digital calm—it's consistently some of the worst rage bait you can find on the internet, as though the 2000s-era MSN homepage had a baby with 4chan.

I wrote about how to hide this crap a few years ago, but my process didn't work for everyone. Since then a close friend of mine almost returned her brand new Microsoft Surface because of this nonsense, which on that device shows up constantly even if you disable the taskbar icon. (She stumbled on my article but it didn't help, and she ultimately used a registry hack to disable the feature entirely.)

None of those workarounds are necessary anymore. You can now use the Windows 11 widget area without seeing any garbage news headlines. Here's how.

How to Hide the News in Windows 11

Open the Widgets Board on your device (try not to read the horrible headlines—they'll be gone soon). Click the gear icon in the top-right corner.

Courtesy of Justin Pot

This will open the settings. Click the Show or hide feeds option.

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From here you can turn off the Microsoft Start option.

Courtesy of Justin Pot

And that's it! It’s not at all obvious from the name, but the Microsoft Start feed is the one that populates the Widgets Board with news. You can now use the Widgets Board without having to question your faith in the human race. Everything here is now at least someone relevant to your life, and you can even remove the widgets that you don't like.

Courtesy of Justin Pot

It seems like Microsoft is planning to allow third parties to make feeds that can replace the news feeds. There's a link in the interface to a section of the Microsoft Store that will supposedly offer more "feeds," though clicking it right now brings you to a page with only one offering: Microsoft Edge. I think I'll just leave this off for now.

Courtesy of Justin Pot

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