Any company that puts ads inside the operating system itself (Windows 11, Android, WebOS, etc.) is posing an existential security threat. Not only that, it makes your system seem really tacky and cheap.
There is a much bigger security problem I fear of: nuclear ad bombs
Nuclear ad bombs are ads that hijack the computer and do damage to its files or operations, essentially a virus. These ads typically don't have to be clicked on to be activated, they just activate when the ad is loaded. This isn't an uncommon thing, they are found in about 40% of websites (statistic needs checkup) a nuclear ad bomb is the same as a normal advertisement, with the exception of arbitrary code execution that triggers malware to execute.
You ever hear someone say that "you probably got that virus from going to too many porn sites" it isn't just porn sites that do this, and it usually isn't just the porn site, it is mostly the ad being served on the porn site. It can be any site with ads, including but not limited to w3schools, [list needs expansion]
What am I getting at? When you enable ads throughout an operating system like Windows 11, you open up the door for extremely danger. A nuclear ad war will start. If done correctly, an ad hitting at enough keywords and going unmoderated could bring devastation worse than if the WannaCry Ransomware was never patched. This could destroy every connected Windows computer in the world in mere seconds. For Linux elitists, I would like to remind you why this is not something you should want: yes, it would immediately be "year of the Linux desktop" but it would cause worldwide problems, problems that hurt, A LOT. Windows is used on a majority of desktop computers. If a virus like this were to hit, it would destroy peoples computers functionality and their files. Trillions of family photos and videos would be destroyed, there is just so much that I would get destroyed that I simply cannot write it all out here. People will kill themselves over the loss of photos of their grandma, parents, and or pets.
You may still think: but moderation has to be really good, right? No! Even Google gets hijacked from time to time (most recently, their account security was exploited, and some bad actors were posing as Google themselves (with hardly any way to tell that it is fake, unlike most other phishing scams) and phished lots of people for hours before Google fixed it) and you also see how well Google moderates their ads (allowing pornography to slip into ads, allowing auto-generated advertisements, allowing countless clickbait ads, allowing thousands upon thousands of pyramid scheme ads, allowing ads longer than 1 hour in duration, etc.)
Microsoft, please. REMOVE ADS FROM WINDOWS!!! This isn't the only reason, you may even gain back a few million users if you do this. Continue on this path, and we may see the end of Windows, all in a heartbeat. Currently with what you are doing, nuclear ads don't need to happen to kill off Windows. People DO NOT like ads in an operating system. Thousands of people are switching to Linux, BSD, and other operating systems every minute now (and in some case, upgrading to Windows 7, or even Windows 8.1) You are only making it easier, and better for them to justify this. You already lost me 3 years ago (2019, when I lost all hope in Windows) (although I didn't finally make the switch until 2020)
@Seanpm2001 - 2022 Thursday March 17th at 12:37 am
Revised on 2022 Thursday March 17th at 4:50 pm
