To clarify, though, this is just an issue for people who are deliberately getting preview builds (aka beta testers), correct? The article feels pretty click-baity with that critical detail not part of the title.
This is like driving some prototype car and having the brakes go out when your tail light burns out. It's a serious concern because it's not something that should be able to happen, with a sane design. Sure, it's click-baity, but it's also insanity.
I've been on insider edition beta versions of windows for years and while I don't mind occasional hiccups stuff like this made me get rid of it. It was fine for a while but ever since the 20202H update it's been one major issue after another.
With that said, I get that things go bad in betas - this is the point of a beta release - but this still feels egregiously bad. It also highlights the direction Windows is going, which is cause for criticism even if this worked perfectly.
internet downloaded ads shouldn't be able to break your computers.
like, even in a buggy system, it shouldn't happened, and there is clearly not enough isolation, something that isn't gonna get fixed in a release candidate and be prepared for this to somehow turn into a ring0 exploit later down the line.
Even more than that, your OS should not be showing you ads at all, let alone downloading them. The problem here isn't that the facility went wrong, it's that the facility exists.