Despite Microsoft’s push to get customers onto Windows 11, growth in the market share of the software giant’s latest operating system has stalled, while Windows 10 has made modest gains, according to fresh figures from Statcounter.
This is not the news Microsoft wanted to hear. After half a year of growth, the line for Windows 11 global desktop market share has taken a slight downturn, according to the website usage monitor, going from 35.6 percent in October to 34.9 percent in November. Windows 10, on the other hand, managed to grow its share of that market by just under a percentage point to 61.8 percent.
The dip in usage comes just as Microsoft has been forcing full-screen ads onto the machines of customers running Windows 10 to encourage them to upgrade. The stats also revealed a small drop in the market share of its Edge browser, despite relentlessly plugging the application in the operating system.
DO NOT PAY FOR WINDOWS 10 UPDATES.
They’re pushing this plan to make people pay to continue to get support for 10 very hard.
Don’t fucking do it. Make them eat this loss of a shitty invasive OS that nobody asked for. This trend is evidence that we’re in control in this situation, not Microsoft.
Force their hand and make it so they have no choice but to keep supporting Windows 10 for free for five more years.
Look, I’m a Linux user primarily, but that doesn’t mean you should just let these corporate fuckholes walk all over you. Windows 10 is ride or die. Make Microsoft pay for trying to fuck you out of a cleaner operating system that is less infested with spyware and actually works half the time.
Not everybody has the time or energy to figure out Linux, but either way, the best way to fight Microsoft is by hitting them square in the pocketbook.
Linux is mostly pretty easy to install/use at this point as long as you stick with a main distro like Mint
This. And if folks are worried that their computer’s hardware won’t be supported (wifi, touchscreen, mousepad, soundcard or a weird mobile graphics driver) I recommend testing it by booting from a live linux flash drive. If everything works with the live version, it should work with the installed version, too.
Even Mint you have to jump through hoops to not have to put in your password every time there’s updates. Hoops that are too complex for a newbie on their own.
Most Linux users don’t want to admit that a huge thing that makes people hate Linux is having to type in their password every time there’s updates (and there’s always updates.)
It’s seemingly such a small thing, and as Linux users, we know the why behind it so we don’t question it, but the average user doesn’t and they hate typing their password over and over to get into the computer, let alone to update it.
To them, Windows is easier since the updates happen silently in the background, and aren’t in the forefront because Linux expects you to know what the fuck you’re doing.
Every Linux box that I didn’t fuck with to make sure updates happened silently in the background that I gave to anyone else would always be wildly out of date the next time I touched it because they just… don’t install updates instead of typing in their password.
Often, they’ve forgotten the fucking password, if you’ve made it so they don’t have to put a password in when they log in (my mother has done this one countless times).
Until we figure out a way to make Linux secure and straightforward for end-users, people will stick with Windows.
Linux expects you to know what the fuck you’re doing.
I’ve heard people claim Mint is easy enough for non technical users (grandma, etc.), but I think that’s with the caveat that they will have someone to support the machine.
Linux users don’t want to admit that a huge thing that makes people hate Linux is having to type in their password every time there’s updates
Hell, people get mad about having to hit a ‘Cool, do that button’, let alone something like a password. It’s how we ended up with UAC v2, because people were steaming pissed about having to accept when a badly written app was doing something stupid that they just changed the scope of ‘stupid’ to be much less restrictive.
In fact it’s even bled over to OS X, as people are SO mad about entering passwords they’re angry at Apple over it, too.
Basically, any time a UI hops in front of you and goes ‘Wait! This is important!’ people get annoyed, and well, all OSes are moving towards more of that shit rather than less, as if they didn’t know that was annoying or something. Glad I don’t work in UX or I’d probably lose my mind at how much stupid hostile shit is being added constantly.
Even Mint you have to jump through hoops to not have to put in your password every time there’s updates.
That’s… by design. Nothing can change your computer until you decide to approve it. As you said, you can change that setting but it’s not an oversight. Many of Windows’ historic security vulnerabilities were because they gave every user admin rights and didn’t prompt for changes. It’s also how many users were unknowingly upgraded to Windows 11 without wanting it…
Yup. The main concern is if there’s specific software you cannot do without, such as:
- Adobe products
- big multiplayer games w/ anti-cheat
- Xbox app/game pass
But if you’re a bit flexible and are willing to try different software, then yeah, Linux is pretty rad. Most Steam games I’ve tried work, you can play Epic and GOG games through Heroic, LibreOffice is fantastic, VLC works the same, and you can get almost any web browser you want (Firefox, Chrome, etc). And if your hardware isn’t too old, it’ll probably work well w/ Wayland, which resolves a number of problems people have had in the past.
If you have any questions about app compatibility, ask away! I probably haven’t used whatever it is, but surely someone else has.
I installed Mint this week.
It did install more smoothly than the others I tried on this run of “I wonder if Linux is viable now” (Fedora 41, Pop, Bazzite, if you’re wondering). It, however, does not support HDR yet and it, like every other one, won’t do proper 5.1 audio out of my ASUS MB, which has no official Linux drivers.
So Windows it is, then, because all the other distros had bigger problems. Fedora is the one that has all the features I need, and it still has the audio bug and it crashed a bunch after I went through all the hoops to set up an Nvidia card.
What people have to watch out for now is unlocking their bootloader if they want to test Linux on a USB drive or dual boot, for example, it will trip Bitlocker (conveniently installed on every Windows computer via update without notification or consent), and that will irreversibly encrypt their Windows hard drive without warning.
Ask me how I know.
hitting them square in the pocketbook.
I’ve been saying this for years to people, but it won’t happen, sadly, if history is anything to go on. The average consumer will always take the easiest path to convenience, even foregoing their leverage as a consumer, if given the choice for a simple monetary resolution.
If the average consumer had the fortitude to resist getting something they wanted now for better pricing/functionality, a lot of these businesses wouldn’t be doing the bullshit they have been doing with price hikes and enshittification. We are simply not a society that can live without these conveniences.
Those that try to “vote with their wallet” (econ 101, baby) know the power the consumer has if principled enough to give up convenience for leverage. Unfortunately, as long as someone can throw money at a problem and call it fixed, it will be difficult to pressure companies to do anything to improve their product. I’d love to be proven wrong.
Hell, maybe one silver lining of the impending tariff disaster is the consumer will be unable to afford it as stuff we need gets too expensive for the stuff we want.
You expect them to work for you for free? What kind of entitled bullshit is that?
Not paying for the 10 security updates doesn’t hurt MS. They don’t make money from their consumer OS. The money is from Office, Cloud, and corporate contracts. It only leaves your PC open. You don’t have the time to install Linux today but you will make the time to attempt to recover your Windows PC from ransomware because you left it unpatched.
Install Linux today. Stop making excuses.
This is just funny.
You expect them to work for you for free?
Install Linux today. Stop making excuses.
Oh yeah, nevermind, I’ll use the free operating system made by people who are working for me for free. Or wait, is that entitled, I’m confused.
Pick a fuckin lane, dude.
Demand that a Linux developer must add a feature that you personally want and yes you are entitled. “I don’t want to upgrade Mint! Patch the old kernel. I demand it!”
MS is selling a security patch. Buy it or don’t.
Linux is available for free. Install it or don’t.
You don’t have a right to demand either way. It’s especially hypocritical given you spend more time on a phone that doesn’t give you 10 years of support like Windows 10 did.
