A recent Windows update probably added a new icon to the lower right corner of your screen. If you don’t want it there, here’s the easy way to get rid of it.

Microsoft really loves to put things on your computer screen even though you didn’t request it.

Last week (June 8, 2021, to be exact) was the monthly time that Microsoft sends out their regular updates to Windows. It’s always the second Tuesday of the month, and is called Patch Tuesday (because many of the updates “patch” security holes that have been discovered). This most recent update included the addition of a Windows toolbar called “News and Interests”, and it shows up in the row of all the other icons in the bottom right corner of your screen:

By default, it just shows the local temperature and weather conditions (84 F and sunny, that’s Florida!). But wait til you put your cursor over it (don’t click, just move the cursor over that icon). Suddenly you have lots more stuff –

So there’s a more thorough weather report, stock prices, a traffic report for an upcoming trip, and several current news stories. And the image you see above isn’t the whole thing – that window is fully scrollable. There are LOTS more news stories when you scroll through the list.

You might actually find this little thing to be a handy quick source of information. But you would also probably want to customize it with the specific news and interests that pertain to YOU.

For the stock prices, you can specific which stocks you want to see. Or you can just eliminate that info entirely.

You can change the weather location (in my example, I would change it to Safety Harbor, which is where I live, rather than Clearwater). Or you can have it not display the weather at all.

There’s also a sports option, so you can see the latest scores and info for your favorite players or teams if you want.

And of course there is always the news – this is reflective of the mind-numbing 24/7 news reporting cycle we are in now.

Some of this stuff might be handy. If I want to know the current temperature, I can just glance at my screen. Of course, I could already do that by glancing at my phone. I don’t follow most sports so I don’t really care about that. In my case, I might customize the news filtering so that I only see the most unusual news stories (those stories are sometimes the source for guests for my “What Was That Like” podcast).

The bad news about this little addition – when you click a link to read an article or get more info, it doesn’t care that your preferred browser is Chrome. All links will open in Microsoft Edge. Remember, this “News and Interests” thing is a Microsoft creation, so they will force you to view any details in their Microsoft browser. Even though most of the world uses Chrome.

But if you find nothing of value in this new addition to your Windows Taskbar, you can just get rid of it. Just do a right click on it, then go up to “News and interests” and in the side menu, click on “Turn off”. And you can always turn it back on using the same process.