With 2023 almost fully in the rear view mirror, it is time for a short year-in-review and recall the most popular stories published on Neowin. Windows 11 mods, Edge controversies, layoffs at Microsoft, wild-looking games, odd Windows 11 upgrade prompts, and more featture in the list.
10. Tiny11—a slimmed-down and bloat-free Windows 11
February 3, 2023, marked the first release of tiny11, a slimmed-down Windows 11 mod with lower hardware requirements, less bloat, and a notably smaller disk footprint. The project has received multiple updates since then, such as a Windows 11 live DVD, tiny11 core, and tiny11 version 2311.
You can even build your own tiny11 ISO if you do not trust pre-built third-party Windows images.
9. Incredibly realistic first-person shooter
Unrecord is an upcoming first-person shooter from Drama. You play as a cop and take down bad guys, witnessing everything from an unconventional point of view recorded on a body camera. What surprised the audience the most was how realistic and true-to-life the game looked. Developers even had to prove the game was not faked.
8. Reddit hack?
Reddit had a rough year. After the third-party app drama, someone hacked the service and took over 80GB of data, demanding the revocation of the new API policies and an extra $4.5 million.
7. Edge is taking screenshots of the websites you visit
In August 2023, users spotted an interesting feature coming to the Microsoft Edge browser. Called "Save screenshots of the site for History," it suggests taking pictures of the websites you visit so you can "quickly revisit" them from the browser history. Microsoft surely knows how to confuse its customers with odd feature names and descriptions.
6. A lot of excited Bing Chat users
2023 was full of Bing and AI news. At some point, the company increased daily turns to 120, resulting in many excited users and tons of views on Neowin. Okay.
5. Windows 11 upgrade prompt with two "yes" buttons
Here is a funny one: at the beginning of the year, Microsoft decided to experiment with a full-screen Windows 11 ad targeting Windows 10 users with compatible hardware. Intrusive ads are no strangers in the world of Microsoft. What made this one special was that there were two "yes" buttons and zero "no, thanks" buttons.
4. MSDT is dead
Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool is now deprecated. The company decided to retire it in favor of the new Get Help platform. However, the process is a gradual one, and Microsoft plans to remove MSDT from future Windows versions somewhere in 2025.
By the way, Microsoft deprecated a lot of Windows components in 2023. Check out our "Every Windows 10 and 11 feature Microsoft deprecated in 2023" article for more information.
3. Almost 700 fired Microsoft employees
2023 was a bad year for many employees in Big Tech. On March 7, 2023, a report emerged about Microsoft laying off almost 700 people from its Seattle-area offices. It was a part of the announced in January 2023 plan to let go of 10,000 workers as a part of broad cost-cutting measures.
2. Full-sized Microsoft banners on the Chrome website
Microsoft"s attempts to get more users for Edge (or make existing ones stay) are often borderline offensive and outrageous. In February, we spotted a massive, nasty banner injected into the Chrome website trying to make you stay on Edge and not download Google Chrome. Although the story went viral, the banner is still there. Heck, Microsoft pressed on and even started nagging users to take a poll after downloading Chrome.
1. Edge sends pics you view online to Microsoft
The biggest story of the year was about Edge sending images you view online to Microsoft for enhancement. Again, without a clear explanation, the feature"s description made a lot of people believe Microsoft can keep an eye on your memes and cat photos. However, the situation is as dark as it might look, but the company deserves a fair share of beating for failing to provide a proper feature description and privacy disclosure.
And that is it for the most popular articles published on Neowin in 2023. Thank you for sticking with us, and let"s hope 2024 will bring more interesting stories!