I run Windows 10 Pro (English, region: Bulgaria), so I don't know if that's the reason, but I don't have any popups (notifications or otherwise) and I have 4 static gaming tiles that are essentially ads since I never asked for these games at all and they're 3rd party products. I assume those come with some bloatware deal that Microsoft made with King.
Gaming ads will be seen in the start menu.
Ads for Onedrive will be seen in file explorer.
If you ever start skype, don't be expected to be able to log off or even shut the app down unless you kill the process or uninstall it entirely.
With every update, it will ask you again to put tracking on, making the ads be more vigilant.
Just a few of the stuff I find incredible annoying with ads in Windows 10.
Seems odd to see complaints of many Ads in an OS--analogous to buying a car and having advertisements show up in the instrument cluster when stopped or not being able to exit the vehicle until watching an Ad.
Haven't used Windows in recent memory (probably since these Ads appeared or I just didn't notice them).
Is it as bad as the article describes?