- Microsoft Start is basically a personalized news feed and is replacing Microsoft News, based on MSN’s still active news feed.
- The “new” service will integrate with Windows 11’s widget system.
- You can customize the news feed by interestest and you can add/remove unwanted news sources.
One of the novelties in Windows 11 is the comeback of the widgets. I personally liked them when first introduced in Windows Vista, and kept using them even when no longer supported with Rainmeter, one of the free utilities I love.
Microsoft tested the waters with Windows 10 this year when it introduced the News and Interests taskbar section, so the new Microsoft Start menu is not really any different. I just hope it will show on two columns, as in all press screenshots (in my current Windows 10 install it’s just one column with a lot of space left and right, a bug that is still not solved).
Microsoft Start still gives you a personalized feed, unique to your Microsoft account, with the only difference being that instead of being available directly in Windows it’s actually a web page you can load in your browser, desktop, or mobile.
Microsoft Start is basically a rebranding of Microsoft News, nothing more. You can hit the Personalize button on top of the page and you can fine-tune your feed.
You can select interests from a given set of options, you can hide unwanted publishers, or add the ones you like.
All changes will sync with your Microsoft account, so they’ll be available in Windows 11 left side widget interface.
Microsoft says it’s using AI and machine learning (both overhyped terms today) to sort the news that’s presented to you. Some form of human moderation will be involved, but we don’t know to what degree.
The same feed will show up in your Edge browser’s new tab page, if you’re using Edge that is.
What I dislike most about Microsoft Start is the binary view on the news: you’re either interested in the US or World news. A bit of localization would help a lot here, and this is where Google News does a better job.
Plus, Google News recently started redirecting visitors to the publisher’s website directly, unlike Microsoft Start. Microsoft merely gives credit to the news source, and displays the content on their website, without sending traffic to the publisher’s own website.
