Windows 11's new Start menu ads are causing ripples throughout the community, with people finding new ways to get around the ads. There are plenty of ways to dodge Start menu ads, but they range from putting your trust in a Windows setting to installing a whole new operating system. Now, another option has appeared on the internet, and its name perfectly sums up a lot of people's attitudes toward Windows 11 getting ads.

Screenshot of a Start11 Start menu with the Windows App style
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The new "Oh Frick Go Back" (OFGB) app arrives for Windows 11

Windows 11 logo over Bloom Wallpaper sandstone

As reported by Tom's Hardware, the "Oh Frick Go Back" (OFGB) app is the creation of Maddy (xM4ddy) on GitHub. The OFGB tool gives you a simple checklist of all the ways Windows 11 can show you ads and lets you toggle them on or off. It's a good, non-intrusive way of removing ads that don't involve replacing entire parts of your operating system. So, in a way, it literally does allow you to "go back" to a time when ads weren't a thing.

In an interview with Tom's Hardware, Maddy states that she's pleased that people are taking to her app, but even more so about how it has sparked discourse about Windows 11's ads and whether or not they should have been added. In fact, Maddy is mostly a Linux user, so Tom's Hardware asked her why she made the Windows app:

I was getting more and more annoyed by ads in random places and decided to try to find an easy fix. After coming across a .reg file by Shawn Brink, I found my answer. After thinking more about it, I figured it may be accessible to more people if there was a GUI so that less tech-savvy people could easily set the registry keys without needing any knowledge of the registry.

If Linux fans are always this helpful, OFGB will give me less of a reason to use Windows 11 and more of a reason to hop over to Tux's domain. But for the time being, Maddy has given us all a bit more breathing room against Microsoft's adpocalypse.