Last week, a pair of widgets rolled out with an Insider build of Windows 11. It’s now possible to test the Spotify and Phone Link widgets if you’re running the latest preview build. While catching up on the story, I realized that I never use the widgets panel and should give it a try, so I hit WIN+W to get started.
Somewhat to my surprise, I was greeted with a flood of news. I knew Microsoft had news content it promoted in several places, but I didn’t expect almost all of my widget panel to be a news feed. After all, it’s the widgets panel and not the news panel.
I thought that would be a simple solution. Click a few buttons, add some of my own widgets, hide the news and I’ll be good to go. No. I started a journey trying to hide news widgets which turned out to be unsuccessful. Our guide on How to use the Widgets feature on Windows 11 explains how to customize the panel, but there’s no option to remove the new ones.
When you click on the ellipsis menu for a widget like weather or stocks, you have the option to hide it. Clicking the plus icon lets you add widgets by pinning them to the panel. You cannot, however, use this section to remove news widgets (or any other widget for that matter).
The same ellipsis menu for a news article shows options to see more or fewer similar articles as well as a few other options. It does not contain an option to completely hide the news. The eye icon with a line allows you to express that you don’t like a story or hide a particular outlet, but again, nothing about deleting news.
A simple solution
There is a simple solution to this problem. Microsoft just needs to add the option to remove news like any other widget. Why should news get special treatment in a panel designed for widgets? I want to interact with things like a music player or a to-do list, not find news. Microsoft already has apps for news and there’s always MSN if I’m dying to read the same stories that appear on the widget panel.
It looks like Microsoft tried to use the widget panel as a way to send us content again. I suspect it’s part of an effort to make money. More eyeballs on the News Feed means more clicks. But that does not justify the move.
News should be a single widget that can be toggled on or off, just like Weather, Stocks, and Spotify. It shouldn’t fill a void in the whole widget panel.
