Microsoft tests ad-financed Office Light
Microsoft 365 without subscription fees, but with advertising. Some users can try this out. There are many restrictions.
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As a field trial, Microsoft has begun testing a free but ad-financed version of the Microsoft 365 office suite with Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Users not only have to put up with advertising banners and, according to reports, hourly advertising videos, but also have to do without numerous functions. The ad-financed option has so far been spotted when installing the Office package on Windows desktops.
Microsoft has not made any announcement on this. When asked, the company has stated that these are tests and that there are no plans to introduce them as a standard product: "Microsoft has no plans to release free, ad-supported Office applications for desktops." Some customers will get access if they ask for
It goes without saying that the free version currently being tested comes with an online obligation. After all, banner ads and promotional videos have to be displayed and monitored; users are also supposed to be directed to the advertisers' websites simply by clicking on them. Microsoft ensures the online constraint by not allowing anything to be saved on the device itself. Although the software runs locally, files can only be saved in Microsoft's cloud (Onedrive). You can then download them from there to have a local copy. As is usual with free Microsoft accounts, cloud storage is limited to a total of five gigabytes.
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Numerous other functions are grayed out. As this may change at any time during the field test (and in the case of software with mandatory online access anyway), here are a few examples: Generally, add-ons, data tools, dictation function, headers and footers, macros, as well as graphic elements of all kinds up to icons or changing line spacing, etc. are missing; in Word, there are no line breaks, footnotes or cross-references; in Excel, pivot tables, screen captures, formula checks, etc. are missing; in PowerPoint, Microsoft has removed slide numbering, timekeeping, background formatting, photo albums, media controls and screen captures, etc.
Of course, there are ad-free alternatives that do not require online access, including LibreOffice, Apache OpenOffice and Calligra Suite (formerly KOffice), which the author uses. Google Docs and Collabora Online, for example, are available online, free of charge and without advertising. Incidentally, Collabora is based on LibreOffice.
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