What is this and how to get rid of it?

[Frank21]

Turned the PC on this morning and I've got this new icon on the taskbar. I can't close it or unpin it.
I'm on Win 10.

[OnkelShield]

Looks like it's actually part of the search box, try hiding the search box and see if it goes away then.

[Frank21]

It's a separate icon to the search box. It seems to be something called News and Interests. I can't unpin it and even when I try to hide it, it won't go away. I just want to get rid of the bastard.

[maraconi]

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/03/17/how-to-disable-search-highlights-on-windows-10/

[John09]

Frank, I don't think this is News and Interest. Do you have the option "Search Highlights" under Search option in taskbar menu? If so, try disabling that and see whether that helps

[Amber]

Install Gentoo.

Seriously, I've been scratching my head too the past few days since it appeared. Annoying, I thought it might have to do with being signed into MS account, which I practically never do, but is now mandatory to get fukkin Minecraft to work.
Damn you M$!!

You know what's the most annoying? not the icon itself, I don't particularly mind it one way or the other... it's the fact that it's pushed in there at all, despite this being Win10 Enterprise and opted out of Insider channel, and custom group policies to specifically crafted to deny "customer experience" telemetry and other spyware and forceware. It makes me madder than a hyena in a zoo fire that MS consistently disregards user settings and overrides them at will. They've been doing it since XP and it really activates my hate gland every time.
Not to mention, as soon as this crap appeared, Windows Update broke. BITS is off, and turns itself back off right away despite explicitly setting it to Auto (goes back to Manual and Stopped), and therefore Windows Update download button will not work, while it taunts me with a pending download for an HP driver version that HP swears doesn't exist.

This is a flashback to 2015 when they previously broke Update, and you had to uninstall an update KB and block it, manually install a fixed WUAUSERV and BITS, and start everything up again.
The last time Update worked was May 11. Sometime between then and now Update broke. Also between then and now, uninvited crap appears on my search bar.
Coincidence? I think not.
Oh, did I mention that this stupid icon won't shut off? I check "Turn Off" but there it is still.
Naah, I'm not mad.
I'm furious now.

[Eve Adams]

I had no trouble shutting it off, the browser doesn't even need to be open. Right-click in the search box, scroll up to Search, and in the submenu, make sure that Show search highlights is unchecked.

[Frank21]

That did the trick Eve & John09, thanks. It shits me that MS does this without asking.

[Amber]

THANK you! That's the cure.

Yeah, it's not part of any browser, it's the Windows desktop search bar, part of Explorer.

[Author]

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