Windows Drops Under 60% in Global Desktop OS Share (linuxiac.com)
- Reference: 0184361798
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/07/08/1728229/windows-drops-under-60-in-global-desktop-os-share
- Source link: https://linuxiac.com/windows-drops-under-60-in-global-desktop-os-share-for-the-first-time-in-years/
> Apple's desktop platforms also remain a major part of the picture. StatCounter lists OS X at 11.89% and macOS at 4.48% for June 2026, meaning Apple's combined desktop presence remains comfortably ahead of Linux in the global chart. Chrome OS follows with 1.21%.
>
> Of course, StatCounter's numbers should be read for what they are: web usage statistics, not a direct count of installed operating systems. The company calculates its Global Stats from page views across websites using its tracking code, analyzing details such as browser, operating system, and screen resolution. In other words, the figures reflect measured web activity rather than the number of machines actually installed worldwide.
[1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-202505-202606
[2] https://linuxiac.com/windows-drops-under-60-in-global-desktop-os-share-for-the-first-time-in-years/
User Agent Switcher (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone running non-Windows is most likely running an agent switcher because the number of bumfuck dumbass web sites still doing OS checks to see if a browser is compatible or not with their basic HTML bullshit. This is one of the absolute largest annoyances of the internet.
Re: (Score:1)
Nicely said.
For a fair comparison with past data, the "unknown" entries should be excluded (likely non-human) and the user agent strings scanned for stale references (somebody that switches the agent to Firefox 120/Windows 11 will rarely update it to Firefox 153 on release date).
If they're looking at overall platform usage (Score:3)
then why are they separating "OS X" (about ten years since that name has been dropped) and "macOS", while only mentioning "Windows" and not any of its derivatives (Server, NT, XP, etc.)?
Re: (Score:2)
stats manipulation.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
> stats manipulation.
"stats trumpulation"
Re: (Score:2)
What's scary is - if those stats are accurate, there are a LOT of Macs out there running an operating system which hasn't seen a security update in almost a decade.
Re: (Score:2)
Or at least are using a user agent of one.
I'm considering switching more (Score:1)
Windows keeps getting worse. Ubuntu, however, is awful. Mac OS? Tolerable at best, but no touch? Give me a break. So I'm just considering still.
Re: (Score:1)
For the unsupported home lusr Ubuntu is threatening, not awful, and superior for web-browsing
Aren't they the same thing? (Score:2)
OS X and MacOS are the same thing if memory serves.
Re: (Score:2)
I have a G5 that still runs fast. The hiccup is when switching tasks, you notice a slight delay.
Re: (Score:2)
> I guess maybe there's a lot of grannies or tech illiterate people out there who are still using their 10 year old iMac or macbook for email and youtube or something like that. I think you can still run Firefox on macOS Catalina, maybe that's enough for a lot of people.
Well, mac was doing the "you aren't allowed to upgrade the OS on this hardware. Please buy new hardware. thx" thing WAY before Microsoft. And since apple hardware tends to be... not cheap, there's probably more than a few tech literates under the age of 65 that simply told apple to fuck themselves thrown in. I personally know a few (hell, I'd probably be one if the power supply in my last mac didn't die)
Re: (Score:2)
Now they are, but MacOS 9 was not OS X, MacOS started at 7.6 when they changed it from System (System 6, System 7, etc)
I really doubt anyone is using anything before OS X on the internet though. I can still get on the internet with MacOS X 10.4 though.
The internet used to be really quick on a 1 GHz Quicksilver Mac. Oh, the good old days.
ORLY (Score:1)
Time to have names for these "unknown".
That's not good data (Score:1)
Every Windows install that has the WSL running or Linux / Unix in a VM, would count as Linux / Unix, not Windows. I don't know how that would scale the numbers, but being you need the WSL to run just about any DevOps, SecOps, or InfoSec workload, I bet you could easily take another 10% off, if not more.
What we're seeing is what I keep pointing out in a paraphrased form of: "The Windows experiment is over, Windows lost, it's done.". People don't / can't run Windows and get professional work done, we know
User agents are pointless (Score:2)
Since everyone pretends to be "Mozilla Chrome Safari". MacOS still reports itself as 10.x, Windows 11 still uses 10.x, and Android uses 10.x as well. Too many poorly coded (and even more since vibe coding is a thing) user agent filters means that it's hard to tell what browser you're using. Developers of small browsers basically can't report themselves as their unique user agent anymore due to artificial blocks.
It's Chromium all the way down now, with Safari and Firefox mostly just implementing what Chro
I love *NIX, but ;) (Score:3)
keywords: "cluster fuck" "fan bois" "pig with lipstick" "Ubuntu shit"
Is that you billg ;)
-------
[1]phocutus [slashdot.org]: “Linux Desktop is doomed till . . . It can handle Multimedia as well as OSX. Till I can seamlessly move my mp3s and photos between devices (laptop, tablets, car stereo) and play/view seamlessly, Linux for a desktop is a pipe dream. Sure, Linux has players, but nothing that works "out of the box" like OSX.”
“I can have a functional music player and photo viewing app with all my apple products. Google? Not easily, the Linux distro of the week? If you feel like playing tweak the OS for hours till it's right only to have an update blow it out of the water. Even Windows is better than Linux in this regard, not nearly as slick as Apple OSX (which is a true UNIX that's predicable without so much fluff that we see in Linux now)”.
“This comes from someone who's started using Linux when 16 (Slackware, Redhat) back in 1996 and other UNIXs--Solaris SPARC/x86, FreeBSD, NetBSD, etc. since. I'm even a fan of Debian (not the Ubuntu shit with flac pack or whatever package bullshit of the week they have now). I love *NIX, but Linux has become the bloated Windows wannabe of the *NIX world”.
“Still no real filesystem as good as ZFS, they can't get their startup service manager figured out and people still split on it. Even OSX is a cleaner more predictable OS than the cluster fuck of Linux has become. But there will always be their Linux fan bois willing to admit a pig with lipstick is sexy. The ONLY thing that's kept Linux alive or progressing on the desktop is STEAM.”
[1] https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=24038154&cid=66228788
I knew it! (Score:3)
> Linux, meanwhile, reached 4.39%,
This really must be the Year of Linux on the Desktop!
Yes ! Our time has finally come !! (Score:2)
2026 - The year of the Linux Desktop
Linux multimedia demos (Score:2)
[1]Linux Multimedia Studio Demo - "Stranger" [youtube.com]
[2]LinuxMCE - Why LinuxMCE? Moving media from room to room. [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPjJIcix0tM
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-29IfFdsrY
But windows 11 adoption is up! (Score:2)
Chase the metric and lose sight of the whole game
"Unknown" risen to 20%, did Windows really decline (Score:3)
Meaning that browsers are getting better at obscuring their OS. I mean, User-Agent string probably doesn't give anything meaningful these days anyway.
Re:"Unknown" risen to 20%, did Windows really decl (Score:4, Interesting)
> Especially since the decline in Windows was not accompanied by a meaningful rise for the other OSes.
The stats from TFS don't add up to anywhere near 100%. Turns out, the latest numbers have an "Unknown" bucket that's 21.45%, and its rising path almost matches the declining path of Windows in their graph. So either:
A) More and more Windows users are changing their user agent string to something unknown.
B) More and more Windows users are moving to another OS and using a browser with a user agent string that is unknown.
C) New user agent strings have shipped but the statcounter site hasn't updated its user agent detection
D) Combo of the above
My bet is "C" with some growth of Mac* and Linux usage. When the OS stat counter can't identify over 1/5th of browsers, I don't know if I'd put a whole lot of weight into it. That "Unknown" bucket should definitely be broken out more.
Re: (Score:2)
Probably some of
E) Users are purposefully using privacy blockers that don't leak details of their computer
as well. Why should a website know my OS? It's serving HTML, it shouldn't make a difference to it.
Re: (Score:2)
> Probably some of
> E) Users are purposefully using privacy blockers that don't leak details of their computer
FWIW, that's covered by "A":
A) More and more Windows users are changing their user agent string to something unknown.
A privacy blocker is but one way of doing so.
Re: (Score:1)
According to stats I've read about and my non-scientific observations ... maybe, just maybe folks are going over to Linux. Whodathunk.
Re: "Unknown" risen to 20%, did Windows really dec (Score:1)
Nobodydathunk because it isnâ(TM)t happening. But by all means pop your champagne cork for the MAYBE 4%
Re:"Unknown" risen to 20%, did Windows really decl (Score:4, Funny)
Where can I download this Unknown OS
Re:"Unknown" risen to 20%, did Windows really decl (Score:4, Interesting)
Unknown is probably AI agents
Re: (Score:1)
Likely bots.