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Microsoft has come under fire in the past for some of its advertising practices and pop-ups related to Windows ten, only the company isn't planning to dorsum down from these endeavors. The company is at present pushing advertisements for what it calls the Personal Shopping Assistant for Chrome (provided you lot apply that browser).

The browser plugin has actually been out for several months, and was developed as part of Microsoft'due south Garage project (Garage is a skunkworks for experimental projects and ideas). Its ostensible goal is to simplify shopping by saving products you lot browse, informing you when prices alter, and assuasive you to share this information with friends. Since the information is attached to your personal e-mail account (via Microsoft or Google), in that location's a good chance that this is a monetization try for Microsoft — the company doesn't derive much acquirement from selling data, but Microsoft has its own ad service and its own search engine. Data almost what people are searching for and purchasing is valuable to multiple market segments.

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Reviews for the extension are split, to put it kindly. Prior to the last few weeks, at that place were almost no unhappy reviews and non many reviews at all. At present, the extension has been bombarded with one-star reviews from unhappy users who are frustrated with the way Windows ten "recommends" this particular product. Given how few reviews accept been written, information technology doesn't seem to be a useful metric of the extension'due south functionality, one way or the other.

The bigger problem Microsoft is facing is the Windows Shop is supposed to be the future of awarding distribution and software purchases. The company likes to tout various claims well-nigh the Windows Shop, including information from May 2022 where it revealed user engagement with the Windows ten Store was more 2x what the Windows viii Shop averaged, while revenue per-user was up 4x. At the time, Microsoft claimed 6.5 billion visits from July – May from more than than 300 1000000 devices — but that's actually but 21.6 visits per device, or ii.2 visits per calendar month. The company said little at the time about total revenue payouts, average developer earnings, or per-application download rates. Reports from roughly a year agone advise that developers were anything only happy with the Windows 10 Store.

Only I think the problem is larger than the relative quality or lack thereof of the Windows ten Store. When Apple launched the iPhone, it created the concept of an app shop. Android, when it debuted, followed conform. Users of these platforms are therefore used to using the App Store to download or buy content on iOS or Android. They are not used to this model in the PC market.

If I want to download a media player, I don't retrieve "Let's see what'due south in the Windows Store!" I think "VLC" or even "MPC-HC." If I want access to a library of loftier-quality games, I've got Steam and GOG. If I want to access Facebook, or Instagram, or Twitter, I'k not going to download an app to practice it — why should I, when there's a browser or four on my organisation already?

People don't want to see ads for software on their desktop. It's a inexpensive fob that reeks of bloatware and desperation, and information technology encourages users to remember of Microsoft equally a hostile landlord that finer forces you to look at ads in commutation for the ongoing utilise of its software. To those who would vastly adopt to purchase the OS and skip the telemetry, the advert, and the unwanted periodic resets to default software, problems like this are a reminder that the relationship between Microsoft and its users accept changed in ways they rather dislike.