Make Windows 8 ad-free?

By MariosX
in Microsoft (Windows)

 Share

Recommended Posts

Proficient

MariosX

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Because free apps make money that way..

The MVP Hosts file does this.

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

Is it safe to use? I mean yeah, you just replace your Windows hosts file with theirs and make your PC completely ad-free.

But, have they blacklisted anything except from ads?

Grand Master

Detection

Posted
Posted

tbh, and this is not promoting ads in an OS, I have only noticed them in the weather app all the way past the end of the app

Tell a lie, I remember seeing a Bing ad on something but I forget what now, but in general I haven't really been hit in the face with them or I would have tried to block them too

Grand Master

Max Norris

Posted
Posted
That is another thing I hate about Windows 8. That is why its no longer on my PC.

You know there's ad-based software in other versions of Windows too yea? It's the apps, not the operating system itself... Don't like ad-based freebies, get something that doesn't use them. Easy fix.

Mentor

Colin McGregor

Posted
Posted

Move to Canada. The ads only seem to affect Americans. My US friends have ads in their apps but I have yet to see one. They showed me screenshots and my apps don't have them.

The music app had one small ad but it was a link to sign up to xbox music. Once I sign in with my old zunepass account its gone and no ads.

Grand Master

Ryoken

Posted
Posted

I like people saying the ad's are fine..

If they were in 3rd party apps, then ya, I'd agree, it's their call how they support their releases.. but they are in Microsoft Apps that are part of Windows 8.. It would be like a Banner ad at the top of Windows Explorer in 7, or in Notepad, Calc, etc.

Also, to the person who said the ad's aren't in Canada, that's flat out wrong. I see them on my Windows 8 Tablet, and VM all the time..

Grand Master

tsupersonic

Posted
Posted

I see no problems with Ads in the Modern UI apps.. EXCEPT the "Microsoft" branded apps, especially the ones that SHIP included with the OS...

How do you think they kept the cost of Windows fairly low compared to other versions? ;)
Grand Master

n_K

Posted
Posted

How do you think they kept the cost of Windows fairly low compared to other versions? ;)

Erm probably by removing large chunks of code and replacing it with pretty basic/simple equivilents that makes not an incredly different from W7.

98/2000 -> XP was a BIG jump.

XP -> Vista was a big jump, it was done very poorly like tried to cram too much in instead of spacing it out

Vista -> 7 wasn't a huge jump, it added quite a bit and fixed all the vista problems

7 -> 8 not much in it, loads of code removed, some 'apps' added and a new start screen with slight update to WDDM. Which probably explains why a it's cheap upgrade.

Rising Star

RandPC

Posted
Posted

How do you think they kept the cost of Windows fairly low compared to other versions? ;)

It's cheap to get people into using Metro, if they use Metro heavily then it's pure profit.

All Metro apps mean money to Microsoft since you can't buy any apps except from MS's store. Microsoft's pay-in services are also integrated into Win8 which is another means for extra revenue that wasn't there directly through the OS previously.

Even without advertising entirely there is WAY more potential profit for Microsoft through Win8 then ever before. As long as you use Metro to a large extent that Microsoft can easily make more profit here then ever before even with a heavily discounted up front purchase price. It's the whole reason why vendor lock-in and app stores work.

If you use the desktop then Microsoft isn't making much from you at all, but just getting you onto the platform and ensuring your aware of and see Metro is a major step forward for them. Once they have then then your a potential customer and more easily incentivized to using Metro.

Throwing all the advertising in the world into desktop apps isn't going to drive revenues like Metro can with dedicated Microsoft pay-in services accessible at launch on the start screen with movies, music, games etc from them. These existed before but weren't there out of the box, and all of your app purchases mean money to them before as well. Whereas previously software purchases never involved MS unless you were buying from MS directly. Everything you use and everything you view or listen to can mean money given to Microsoft.

Money from advertising is penny ante compared to everything else. It's nice, but not a major revenue driver. A giant banner advertisement in Explorer on the desktop doesn't offer nearly the same potential revenue gains.

Metro usage effectively subsidizes the up front cost of the OS. It's not much different then contracts subsidizing smartphone prices.

Once the majority of people already have/use an OS with Metro then they can worry about driving revenue directly through OS purchases again. But right now that's almost certainly a secondary concern.

Veteran

~Johnny

Posted
Posted

Yeah, there's so many. Look at all these ads. http://imgur.com/PT2Fn

Lol. One ad is "full of ads".

And I'd be hard pressed to even call that advertising... it's telling you about a feature of the application you're actually using! :p

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • The Trump administration doesn't want you to use OpenAI's GPT-5.6 without its approval

      By excalpius · Posted

      Ignoring the fact that this "colony" kicked the empire of King George's arse during those early years... You are confusing the First Industrial Revolution (which was clearly pulled out of some butt-hurt Brit historian's arse after the fact) with the Second Industrial Revolution (aka now called the Technological Revolution, undoubtedly by that same butt-hurt Brit), which transitioned the world from the UK/UPS Empire to the USA as the world's only superpower. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution I hope you realize that I am having big fun here.
    • OpenAI announces GPT‑5.6 Sol, its next-generation flagship model beating Claude Mythos 5

      By pradeepviswav · Posted

      OpenAI announces GPT‑5.6 Sol, its next-generation flagship model beating Claude Mythos 5 by Pradeep Viswanathan Credit: OpenAI OpenAI today announced a limited preview of its new GPT-5.6 model series, which includes the Sol, Terra, and Luna models targeting different price points. GPT-5.6 Sol is the flagship model targeted at demanding reasoning and agentic workloads. GPT-5.6 Terra is positioned as a balanced model for everyday work, featuring performance competitive with GPT-5.5 while being half the cost. GPT-5.6 Luna is the fastest and most affordable model, delivering strong capability at a lower price point. Unlike previous model releases from OpenAI, GPT-5.6 is starting with a limited preview for a small group of trusted partners due to U.S. government restrictions. As expected, OpenAI previewed its plans and the models' capabilities to the U.S. government ahead of launch, and the government asked OpenAI to limit the first wave of access to select partners. OpenAI also mentioned in the official announcement blog post that it does not believe this type of government access process should become the long-term default. OpenAI highlighted that GPT-5.6 Sol comes with a robust safety stack featuring improved protections for higher-risk activity, sensitive cyber requests, and repeated misuse. The company also spent several weeks pressure-testing the system and hardening it against real-world attacks. On the capability side, as expected, GPT-5.6 Sol is OpenAI’s strongest model yet. It delivers better results in agentic performance across coding, biology, and cybersecurity. On the Terminal-Bench 2.1 benchmark, which tests command-line workflows requiring planning, iteration, and tool coordination, GPT-5.6 Sol sets a new record with a score of 91.9%, beating Anthropic's Claude Mythos 5. Additionally, GPT-5.6 introduces a new "max" reasoning effort for even deeper reasoning. The new "ultra" mode uses subagents to accelerate complex work beyond what a single agent can handle. Pricing starts at $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens for Sol. Terra costs $2.50 for input and $15 for output, while Luna costs $1 for input and $6 for output. GPT-5.6 comes with more predictable prompt caching, including support for explicit cache breakpoints and a 30-minute minimum cache life. Sol will also launch on Cerebras in July at speeds up to 750 tokens per second for select customers. OpenAI plans to make GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna broadly available in ChatGPT, Codex, and the API in the coming weeks.
    • The Trump administration doesn't want you to use OpenAI's GPT-5.6 without its approval

      By monterxz · Posted

      I'm not sure if you are trolling because I saw people saying this with the straight face, but there were no United States of America when industrial revolution started, just United Colonies 🤣 p.s. I'm not British, so I'm not offended.
    • Firefox 152.0.3

      By James W. · Posted

      Glad I uninstalled this incredibly buggy browser. Looking at that changelog, they clearly don't test their updates at all.
    • UniGetUI 2026.2.2

      By Copernic · Posted

      UniGetUI 2026.2.2 by Razvan Serea UniGetUI is an application whose main goal is to create an intuitive GUI for the most common CLI package managers for Windows 10 and Windows 11, such as Winget, Scoop and Chocolatey. With UniGetUI, you'll be able to download, install, update and uninstall any software that's published on the supported package managers — and so much more. UniGetUI features Install, update and remove software from your system easily at one click: UniGetUI combines the packages from the most used package managers for windows: WinGet, Chocolatey, Scoop, Pip, Npm and .NET Tool. Discover new packages and filter them to easily find the package you want. View detailed metadata about any package before installing it. Get the direct download URL or the name of the publisher, as well as the size of the download. Easily bulk-install, update or uninstall multiple packages at once selecting multiple packages before performing an operation Automatically update packages, or be notified when updates become available. Skip versions or completely ignore updates in a per-package basis. Manage your available updates at the touch of a button from the Widgets pane or from Dev Home pane with UniGetUI Widgets. The system tray icon will also show the available updates and installed package, to efficiently update a program or remove a package from your system. Easily customize how and where packages are installed. Select different installation options and switches for each package. Install an older version or force to install a 32bit architecture. [But don't worry, those options will be saved for future updates for this package] Share packages with your friends to show them off that program you found. Here is an example: Hey @friend, Check out this program! Export custom lists of packages to then import them to another machine and install those packages with previously-specified, custom installation parameters. Setting up machines or configuring a specific software setup has never been easier. Backup your packages to a local file to easily recover your setup in a matter of seconds when migrating to a new machine Devolutions UniGetUI 2026.2.2 changelog: This release marks the completion of UniGetUI's migration from WinUI to Avalonia. With the remaining WinUI components and dependencies now removed, UniGetUI is fully powered by Avalonia. This update also brings Windows 11 Snap Layouts support, refined styling throughout the application, improved log viewing, new illustrations, and significantly smaller release packages. Highlights Further refined the Avalonia user interface to better match WinUI styling and behavior across package lists, navigation elements, dialogs, and controls. Added support for Windows 11 Snap Layouts when hovering the maximize button, matching the behavior of native Windows applications. Added illustrations for empty and loading package list states, improving visual feedback throughout the application. Improved the operation log window so automatic scrolling no longer interrupts users when reviewing previous log entries. Reduced installer and application package sizes, resulting in smaller downloads and a significantly leaner Windows distribution. User Interface Improvements Improved package list styling, column headers, backgrounds, hover states, and selection indicators for a more polished and consistent experience. Refined sidebar navigation and segmented controls to better align with modern Windows design patterns. Improved package tag badges and icon presentation throughout the application. Updated several labels, placeholders, and interface elements for improved clarity and consistency. Removed the remaining WinUI-specific styling dependencies, further consolidating the application around Avalonia. Windows Improvements Added native Windows 11 Snap Layouts integration for the maximize button. Improved maximize button hover and pressed visual states to more closely match native Windows behavior. Performance & Reliability Reduced the size of Windows release packages by removing unnecessary runtime dependencies and optimizing published builds. Reduced installer size through improved compression settings. Simplified application dependencies and reduced overall maintenance complexity. Fixes Fixed log output auto-scrolling behavior when manually reviewing previous entries. Resolved various UI inconsistencies and styling issues across the Avalonia interface. Addressed several minor issues and edge cases throughout the application. Other Changes Dependency cleanup and project maintenance. Internal code refactoring and infrastructure improvements. Additional test coverage and build pipeline optimizations. Download: UniGetUI 64-bit | Portable | ~90.0 MB (Open Source) Download: UniGetUI ARM64 | Portable Links: UniGetUI Home Page | GitHub | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware

  • Recent Achievements

    • One Year In
      bernmeister earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      tuben earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • First Post
      OffsetAbs earned a badge
      First Post
    • Reacting Well
      OffsetAbs earned a badge
      Reacting Well

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      441
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      197
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      154
    4. 4
      FloatingFatMan
      71
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      67
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!