telemetry privacy

Microsoft is quietly putting a one‑click internet speed check where most Windows users already look for connectivity: the taskbar’s network menu. The change appears in the Release Preview builds of Windows 11 (KB5077241, builds 26100.7918 and 26200.7918) and surfaces a Perform speed test / Test...

Microsoft is quietly putting a one‑click internet speed check where most Windows users already look for connectivity, adding a “Perform speed test” / “Test internet speed” control to the Taskbar network menu and Wi‑Fi quick settings in recent Windows 11 preview builds. Background Windows has...

Microsoft’s latest Release Preview build for Windows 11 gives us a concrete look at the next feature drop — a measured package of quality‑of‑life enhancements that Microsoft says will start reaching production PCs in the coming weeks. The preview includes a curated subset of Emoji 16.0, a...

When a motoring podcaster likened Microsoft Word’s unpredictable table behaviour to the idiosyncrasies of an Alfa Romeo, he opened a productive line of thought: if Microsoft—the company that gave us Windows, Office, Azure and Copilot—decided to build a car, what would it actually be like? The...

Windows 11 ships with a surprising amount of background activity by default — indexing, telemetry, peer-to-peer update sharing, legacy printing infrastructure, and a prefetching service that dates back to the Vista era — and turning off a handful of these services can, in many setups, quietly...

Windows 11’s interface decisions—minimalist tooling, a simplified taskbar, and a File Explorer that often feels like it’s one step behind what users need—have left a large and vocal group of power users frustrated. The good news is that the open‑source community has produced practical...