This new tool gives you full control over Windows 11 ads – and it has a great name – XDA Developers

Key takeaways

• Maddy’s “Oh Frick Go Back” app on GitHub gives you a simple checklist for removing Windows 11 ads in a non-intrusive way.
• Maddy, a Linux user, created the app to deal with annoying ads, sparking a debate about the necessity of ads in Windows 11.
• The app allows less tech-savvy users to easily disable Windows 11 ads without needing to replace the entire operating system.

Windows 11’s new Start Menu ads are having ripples throughout the community, with people finding new ways to bypass the ads. There are many ways to avoid Start Menu ads, but they range from relying on a Windows setting to installing a completely new operating system. Now another option has appeared on the Internet, and its name perfectly sums up the attitude of many people towards Windows 11 receiving advertisements.

The new “Oh Frick Go Back” (OFGB) app is coming to Windows 11

As reported Tom’s material, the “Oh Frick Go Back” (OFGB) app is the creation of Maddy (xM4ddy) on GitHub. The OFGB tool gives you a simple checklist of all the ways Windows 11 can show you ads and lets you enable or disable them. This is a good, non-intrusive way to remove ads that doesn’t involve replacing entire parts of your operating system. So, in a way, it literally allows you to “go back” to a time when ads didn’t exist.

In an interview with Tom’s material, Maddy says she’s happy that people are using her app, but even more so about how it sparked a debate about Windows 11 ads and whether or not they should have been added. In fact, Maddy is primarily a Linux user, so Tom’s material asked her why she created the Windows application:

I was getting more and more annoyed by the ads appearing in random places and decided to try and find a simple solution. After coming across a .reg file from Shawn Brink, I found my answer. After thinking about it more, I thought it could be accessible to more people if there was a GUI so that less tech-savvy people could easily set registry keys without needing any knowledge of the register.

If Linux fans are still this helpful, OFGB will give me less reason to use Windows 11 and more reason to move into the realm of Tux. But for now, Maddy has given us all a little more respite from the Microsoft adpocalypse.