Got notifications?

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I’m linking a thread in the forums about something I’ve seen lately on both Windows 10 as well as Windows 11 and both on and off a domain. Microsoft i
[See the full post at: Got notifications?]

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Casey S, LH, L95, TechTango, Charlie, Microfix, satrow, lmacri, abbodi86, NaNoNyMouse, Cybertooth, Alex5723

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0 ads and notifications except those that I allow like Windows updates (notify=2)
and notifications for Defender updates and (Defender) Kaspersky quick scan.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2.

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Clearly Microsoft is finding new ways to do ads inside the operating system, ergo my post to let them know it’s not appreciated.  I’ve seen this on a Windows 10 and it shouldn’t take third party tools to make the operating system behave.  Settings should be clear and obvious.

 

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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PerthMike, TechTango, fk5353, Charlie, Alex5723

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Why no post directed at Google’s CEO to let him know about the Chrome browser notifications which you found even more invasive?

Microsoft Edge has blocked those by default for more than two years:

Quiet notification requests

Beginning with Microsoft Edge 84, we’re introducing support for a new notification request experience called quiet notification requests. This experience is currently enabled by default for all Microsoft Edge users, but users can turn off the “Quiet notification requests” setting at edge://settings/content/notifications if they prefer.

Reducing distractions with quiet notification requests

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.2361 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

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Whataboutism doesn’t negate the point Susan was making to mention other corporate giants that also engage in questionable behavior. This site is Windows-centric, so transgressions within Windows itself naturally get more attention paid than those of just one application that can be run on Windows (or anything else).

To avoid the excesses of Google, Chrome itself is easily avoided (and I highly recommend everyone do that) while still keeping compatibility with sites that ostensibly “require” Chrome. Grab any given Chromium browser (of which Edge is one among many) and give it a Chrome useragent, if necessary, and everything Chrome works the same way, pretty much across the board.

And then there is the Firefox family, of course. I have noticed more and more sites that do not work properly in *fox, but it is infrequent enough that I can generally work around it or just avoid those sites completely. I have Vivaldi at the ready, but until Chromium browsers can properly scroll using the touchpad, they can never be my main browser.

Windows isn’t as easily discarded.

Chrome also doesn’t cost a hundred bucks or more.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/16GB & GTX1660ti, KDE Neon
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, KDE Neon (and Win 11 for maintenance)

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Ascaris wrote:

And then there is the Firefox family, of course. I have noticed more and more sites that do not work properly in *fox, but it is infrequent enough that I can generally work around it or just avoid those sites completely.

Firefox is my default browser, set for automatic updates, and I have yet to come across a site that does not work properly.  Of course, there are a bazillion sites and I haven’t visited all of them, but so far, so good.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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Ascaris wrote:

I have Vivaldi at the ready, but until Chromium browsers can properly scroll using the touchpad, they can never be my main browser.

Edge scrolls fine from my touchpad. Is it a Linux issue?

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.2361 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

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b wrote:

Why no post directed at Google’s CEO to let him know about the Chrome browser notifications which you found even more invasive?

If one does not use Google, has never installed Chrome, has completely uninstalled Edge, and disabled all notifications, there are no interruptions, no pop-ups, no distractions.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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I’m not seeing any popup ads on four H/W W10 Pro installations.
My 3rd party firewall is set to block by default, unless I authorise the connection..

New meaning for WaaS – Windows advertising a Service?

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created IT- AE

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Win 10 22H2. No third party add-ons. Notifications On (except for the check boxes, which are all Off). Focus Assist Off

Very little other tweakage that might be relevant, except that I have “Turn off Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program” enabled in Group Policy

Fingers crossed, but I’ve not seen this behaviour recently

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NaNoNyMouse wrote:

Fingers crossed, but I’ve not seen this behaviour recently

NaNoNyMouse:

See WUBRINY’s 30-Aug-2023 topic Microsoft Pushing Notifications Even Though I’ve Turned Them Off that Susan linked to in her post. It appears that WUBRINY has a new sender called “Suggested” at Settings | System | Notifications & Actions | Get Notifications From These Senders on their Win 10 machine that is responsible for these pop-up notifications.

My Win 10 Pro v22H2 OS doesn’t have this Suggested sender (yet?) so I’m guessing it’s an experimental feature that is still in beta or being rolled out slowly.
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Dell Inspiron 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.3324 * Firefox v117.0.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.23080.2006-1.1.23080.2005 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.6.1.280-1.0.2117 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7279

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NaNoNyMouse

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Thanks for pointing that out

I’ve just checked, and I see that I do actually have a sender of “Suggested” defined, which had defaulted to On (now turned Off), although, as mentioned, I hadn’t received any intrusive pop-ups recently (perhaps because of my Group Policy setting?)

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I’ve even seen ads pop up in notifications on linux: I allowed some site to send notifications, and they used it to send ads through notifications from my browser.  I disabled notifications from my browser, and also from that site.

I understand that some sites run on ads only, but my pc is not their billboard.  I much prefer to pay a small annual fee to sites that don’t push adds on me and are worth the money. Like this one!

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Microfix, Charlie, Cybertooth

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lmacri wrote:

“Suggested” at Settings | System | Notifications & Actions | Get Notifications From These Senders

I don’t have Suggested in Notifications.. on my Windows 10 Pro 22H2.

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I don’t have “Suggested in Notifications” on my Win 10 Pro 22H2 either, buy might have it if I  had the “Suggest ways…” box checked below.  Just a thought.  Dunno if it’s tied to the issue.

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TechTango wrote:

I don’t have “Suggested in Notifications” on my Win 10 Pro 22H2 either, buy might have it if I had the “Suggest ways…” box checked below.

Hi Tech Tango:

That checkbox labelled “Suggest ways I can finish setting up my device to get the most out of Windows” at Settings | System | Notification & Actions was discussed in post # 2585624 of WUBRINY’s Microsoft Pushing Notifications Even Though I’ve Turned Them Off . As far as I know this checkbox controls the appearance of the full-screen “Get even more out of Windows” prompt described in Maynak Parmar’s 07-Jun-2020 Windows Latest article Windows 10 is Nagging Users with Full-Screen Setup Prompts that is normally displayed when you reset or clean install the OS but can randomly appear after a system restart.

I used to see those full-screen prompts about once a month after I logged into Windows (see the attached image I captured in Nov 2020 when I was still using Win 10 Pro v1909) until I disabled that checkbox.
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Dell Inspiron 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.3324 * Firefox v117.0.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.23080.2006-1.1.23080.2005 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.6.1.280-1.0.2117 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7279

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TechTango

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On my two computers, I have “Suggested” listed within the Settings/System/Notifications & actions” page as a sender (which I promptly turned off as soon as I saw it after getting one of those annoying pop-ups in the system tray area). My other machine doesn’t have that item listed at all in that location. On both machines, I have all the check boxes cleared, as shown by other posters, and have always had them cleared from the very start with Windows 10.

However, the machine on which I got the pop-up (and on which “Suggested” appears as a sender) has more than one active account on it, so I will go see if “Suggested” appears within the area previously mentioned for the other accounts besides mine on that machine. If so, I’ll promptly turn it off for the other accounts where I might find it.

Something tells me that there’s an obscure registry setting that’s behind all this and, once found, will be able to rid us of even having “Suggested” listed as a notification sender!

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lmacri

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I’ve just pushed a few of these blocks out through GPO registry items, as all our corporate users were getting them.

HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Notifications\ Settings\Windows.SystemToast.Suggested\Enabled = 0 (DWORD)

Put that in a Group policy wizard for users, and it blocks these “Suggestions”…

I similarly blocked Backup notifications (no need for users to worry about backups on the domain).

If only Microsoft made these easily available via ADMX definitions but nooooooo.

Now, if only Google didn’t pull these same Microsoft tactics by recently silently rolling out Chrome apps onto all our desktops (Gmail, Google Drive, Youtube, etc.). Might want to check your Control Panel/Programs list to see what got silently installed on your PC recently.

No matter where you go, there you are.

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WUBRINY, oldfry

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PerthMike wrote:

silently rolling out Chrome apps onto all our desktops (Gmail, Google Drive, Youtube, etc.).

I don’t have pushed Google apps on my Windows 10 desktop.
I use Chrome, use web Gmail, use web Google photos. No apps.

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PerthMike wrote:

I’ve just pushed a few of these blocks out through GPO registry items, as all our corporate users were getting them.

HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Notifications\ Settings\Windows.SystemToast.Suggested\Enabled = 0 (DWORD)

Put that in a Group policy wizard for users, and it blocks these “Suggestions”…

I similarly blocked Backup notifications (no need for users to worry about backups on the domain).

If only Microsoft made these easily available via ADMX definitions but nooooooo.

Now, if only Google didn’t pull these same Microsoft tactics by recently silently rolling out Chrome apps onto all our desktops (Gmail, Google Drive, Youtube, etc.). Might want to check your Control Panel/Programs list to see what got silently installed on your PC recently.

Turning the suggested notifications off in ‘Notifications & Actions -> Get notifications from these senders’ does the same thing.  It sets or takes away that registry entry.

I’m curious, on a machine that doesn’t have the Suggested entry yet, if setting that key will block the notifications when it gets installed.  Or will Microsoft just remove the set key so the suggested notifications will come thru.

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As far as I know this checkbox controls the appearance of the full-screen “Get even more out of Windows” prompt described in Maynak Parmar’s 07-Jun-2020 Windows Latest article Windows 10 is Nagging Users with Full-Screen Setup Prompts that is normally displayed when you reset or clean install the OS but can randomly appear after a system restart.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I know this nag screen you’re mentioning.  I don’t miss it.  🙂

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Zathras wrote:

PerthMike wrote:

I’ve just pushed a few of these blocks out through GPO registry items, as all our corporate users were getting them.

HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Notifications\ Settings\Windows.SystemToast.Suggested\Enabled = 0 (DWORD)

Put that in a Group policy wizard for users, and it blocks these “Suggestions”…

I similarly blocked Backup notifications (no need for users to worry about backups on the domain).

If only Microsoft made these easily available via ADMX definitions but nooooooo.

Now, if only Google didn’t pull these same Microsoft tactics by recently silently rolling out Chrome apps onto all our desktops (Gmail, Google Drive, Youtube, etc.). Might want to check your Control Panel/Programs list to see what got silently installed on your PC recently.

Turning the suggested notifications off in ‘Notifications & Actions -> Get notifications from these senders’ does the same thing.  It sets or takes away that registry entry.

I’m curious, on a machine that doesn’t have the Suggested entry yet, if setting that key will block the notifications when it gets installed.  Or will Microsoft just remove the set key so the suggested notifications will come thru.

Not sure, I’ve resorted to using Group Policy on our domain to force-set these registry keys, so Microsoft CAN’T reset them.

No matter where you go, there you are.

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