The Weather app, built into the Windows 11 operating system, is drawing criticism from users due to its high memory usage and the advertisements it contains. The app consumes approximately 1.2 GB of RAM while idle, drawing attention to itself.

This amount is five times more than the approximately 246.7 MB of RAM consumed by the native Weather app on macOS. Windows 11 users are complaining about such high resource consumption and advertisements on an expensive operating system.

Web-based structure causes high resource consumption

The main reason for the high RAM consumption of the Windows 11 Weather app is that it is actually a web-based interface running via WebView2. When examined through Task Manager, it is seen that the application runs with nine different sub-processes and exhibits a Chromium-based structure.

The application includes various sponsored advertising content, such as Adobe Acrobat, in addition to weather data. Microsoft obtains weather information from sources such as Foreca and the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts under license. However, Apple, which offers similar detailed information in its Weather app, does not display any ads.

Microsoft updated eight different built-in applications this year, including Calculator, Camera, Clock, and Photos. The Weather app is not included in this update list because it is an MSN-branded web wrapper. Although the company stated that it will focus on local application development processes, it is not yet clear whether MSN-branded applications will be included in this scope.

Could WinUI transformation be the solution?

Microsoft aims to transition to a WinUI-based structure in Windows 11 by removing old Win32 and WebView2 code. The company acknowledges that local applications currently consume excessive RAM and is working on performance improvements.

While improving the efficiency of the WebView2 engine is one option, experts argue that the complete solution lies in WinUI-based local applications. Heavy-running applications like the Clipchamp image editor are also expected to be redesigned in this way. As work continues to make Windows 11 faster and reduce ads, an ad-free Weather app could serve as a valuable example.

Do you think Microsoft should remove ads from built-in applications and make them lighter?