A few days ago, we mentioned that Microsoft started showing advertisements of its services in File Explorer that is present in Windows 11 Insider builds.
The ads did not appear at all, leading many to believe that Microsoft was conducting A / B testing before embedding them in the "stable" operating system. Of course, Microsoft's move provoked a lot of reactions from the public. So Microsoft gave some clarifications about the controversial move.
A company statement published by The Verge states that the ads in File Explorer were wrong. Windows Senior Program Manager Brandon LeBlanc stated:
It was an experimental one banner which was not intended to be published externally and was disabled.
However, his statement was slightly worrying because Microsoft is not completely ruling out the possibility appearanceads in "stable" (GA) versions of File Explorer in the future. They may have been accidentally released this time, but we don't know if they will be released normally in the next time.
The last appearance of an ad in File Explorer was promoting it extension Microsoft Editor. In the past, the company tried again to serve ads for OneDrive in File Explorer, but again faced backlash from the public.
It will be interesting to see if the company takes seriously the public comments on the "unfortunate" incident.
