I am using the latest 8.2.1 and installed the latest blog and news plugin 1.6.4, and I could not get the widget setting to work correctly. It was showing that the widget was turned off but it still shows the article in the front page.
I also found no way of turning the blog widget off from showing the link to the public or members unless you disabled it from the admin panel.
I even deleted the 1.6.4 and went back to the 1.6.3 and had the same issues.
Maybe I missed something, but I also disabled all my plugins to see if there was something causing it and found nothing.
I took the plugin completely out of my server and admin panel until the issues are corrected or an update is given.