I feel like im never early to things, so I’ve been using linux for 2 years it’s probably pretty popular and has been for a while now
I have a better metric, Linus tech tips and other PC channels are all talking about linux this year, many even for gaming, the general PC nerd is hearing and learning about linux and considering it as a real choice, so many are absolutelly fed up with windows BS and are swaping to linux. The supposed big problems of linux about having to tinker it all the time, they are just as likely to happen on windows now, except that on linux is something technichal to fix, on windows its the new update fucking everything up, and you know it will keep happening, because they are continually pushing updates, and you did not choose any or use any of those updates. My PC has been crashing about once a day for the past year for some updates that gave me nothing except more settings to turn off every time. Every PC nerd that was not already on linux has been waiting for an alternative for a long time, maybe work requires windows, maybe gaming requiered windows, maybe other people sharing the PC, but all those things are going away, there is no real reason to keep windows, its becoming a walled garden like apple, except apple has better quality i guess(never had a mac, and hated the iphone), windows is a barbed wire garden, easier to get out but if you are used to it you dont want to touch the spikes. Now a part of the fence is broken and people see that the grass is just as green or greener outside.
What I read is a whole lot of vagueness and assumptions and so n so…
Anecdotal evidence doesn’t count but Ima use this one today: I know a guy.
Not a super tech wizard in the slightest but works with pc’s, recently told me he joined the linux camp with bazzite. I think we here on the fediverse all probably know someone who recently switched through proton/bazzite or mint/ubuntu …
And those might not all stick around, but some will.
As long as MS keeps shooting themselves in the foot and showing their allegiance to drumpelstilskin and company I’d like to think people are going to take notice.
It’s not gonna be that old lady next door but her grandson at some point probably will be coming across linux at some point.
Yeah I’m having conversations with the most broie business school types and finding out they’re running mint. I grew up not knowing anyone who used Linux except maybe at school.
Just shutdown my PS5 for good until it will be moddable, and upgraded my mid-tier PC and switched to Bazzite to use it as a game console. After getting used to the new OS, everythings been flawless so far, I’m happy I’ve made the switch.
Just note how the guy starts with “only Microsoft numbers can be trusted” is biased bullshit. Pretending a company will give true numbers at all time, is a big lie. If anything they will inflate numbers and they’d try to hide the truth as much as they can because investors are watching.
While there will be truth in bots taking a part of the traffic, the whole article is Microsoft bootlicker talk.
Taking another random tool that seems to filter bot for results is just him trying to get a confirmation for his bias.
Yes a 10% stat at a given time by a given measurement tool, is not equal to a true 10% userbase. Yes there are bots. Yes there are Linux and Windows zombies alike.
Still, linux desktop is going up, with a fraction of the marketing power Windows and Apple have.
Still, linux desktop is going up, with a fraction of the marketing power Windows and Apple have.
This isn’t entirely true. Linux is getting a lot of help from Microsoft. <wink wink>
They say every million in Microsoft ad spend is a quarter point in Linux desktop share.
To be fair…
This is ‘windowslatest.com’.
Totally agree with you, but… the bias … was foreshadowed, lol.
FWIW this website is always like this, every article I’ve read from latest feels like it came from the MS PR desk.
I wonder why that could be, rofl!
Surely MSFT would always be clear, transparent, and forthright with the public, ahahahaha!
Trust that Microsoft will give true numbers, wink wink
Just note how the guy starts with “only Microsoft numbers can be trusted” is biased bullshit.
I would argue misquoting someone to fit your argument is more a egregious example of “biased bullshit”.
Only Microsoft or OEM partners can tell you with the highest accuracy how many people use Windows now versus five years ago.
This is literally true. They’re not saying they WILL tell you the accurate numbers, they’re saying only they have those numbers to tell.
I own 6 Windows Professional licenses. I am presently using two. You really think Microsoft are the ones to trust?
Having numbers others don’t doesn’t make those numbers useful or true in every context.
No. No one is telling anyone to “trust Microsoft”, no one is saying “the numbers Microsoft reports are true”. That is a quote the guy above invented from thin air.
Edit: but for the record, it would be lawsuit territory for MSFT to actually publish false numbers. The shareholders would absolutely ream them. They’re allowed to not post numbers, but they’re not allowed to post false numbers.
They don’t have to publish false numbers. Just keep vague which numbers they are posting. “Total active licenses” was what I referenced earlier.
Ignoring that the default browsers on many distros are seen as bot traffic, filtering the alleged bot traffic on Linux still results in around 7% of overall traffic, up from 4ish a year ago. It also doesn’t explain the giant leaps in downloads on many distros that correlate with the spike. It’s possible some organization set up a ton of computers with openclaw and a wide variety of distros on it I guess to influence opinion 🤷♀️
Also extremely biased source
Various governments in Europe are switching to Linux too. Libraries in Copenhagen now use Linux.
it’s weird (perhaps convenient) that their explanation is “bots” but they don’t mention bot metrics from StatCounter themselves: according to StatCounter numbers, bot traffic share increased 0.37% in July 2026, while Linux Desktop grew 1.92% in the same month.
Copium
To address some of the author’s points.
- MacOS vs OSX: to my understanding, safari reports the OS as OSX still, likely for compatibility reasons. 3rd party browsers such as chrome changed their agent to macOS, which explains the split. macOS users are more likely to use Safari in general.
- Bots: Does the author really believe these sites aren’t capable of detecting bots? I’m sure some slip through, but if not traffic were included in general, then Linux would be at a 90% share or higher. They just consume way more page traffic than a human ever could.
- Data corrections: Sure, the data may get corrected a bit to bring Linux numbers back down, but there is a clear trend that Linux numbers are rising. It also happens that Windows is where people are migrating from the most.
- Official numbers from Microsoft: lol
Bots: Does the author really believe these sites aren’t capable of detecting bots? I’m sure some slip through, but if not traffic were included in general, then Linux would be at a 90% share or higher. They just consume way more page traffic than a human ever could.
Only other possibility I can think of is llms made botting for small operators more accessible. Still leads to a lot more people running linux
Sounds like they’re in denial.
Okay, so did they account for the bots that claim to be Windows PCs? (I’ll bet there are still some running around that identify themselves as IE 6, although those may finally no longer be the majority of all bots.)
Yes there are zero bots running windows and nothing would ever inflate those numbers pleased clap.
Aww :(
So is it still 4%?
Overall probably closer to the truth.
I wish people didn’t obsess over these large numbers as much. Like when Linux suddenly hit 5% on Steam when that was clearly just an outlier and was destined to fall right back down.
The only interesting thing about the numbers is that eventually, people outside the tech bubble will pick up on it and think about seeing what the fuss is about and if it’s a solution for them and then maybe also switching.
In that sense: I “heard” that the number is 20% actually. Windows is so over. It’s true. Pass it on.
Honestly it seems like they more or less identified all of the former unidentified users, and it turns out the vast vast majority of which are on unix based systems.
If this goes right down again, I’d imagine the unidentified users to go up - But would be a decent indication for a lot of traffic being scrapers
How would that clearly be an outlier? Hindsight is 20/20, right?
Something strange with the March 2026 results was that it had two new distro entries, “0 64 bit” at 17.60% and “64 bit” at 8%. In April, one of those entries disappeared and the other’s share dropped significantly. In May, both were gone entirely and Linux was back to a more reasonable marketshare of 4%.
I’ll admit that weird and unexplained data is a hint to something going wrong. Shame on steam.
Because these numbers experience wild fluctuations on a regular basis. Does it make sense to you that people are just joining and quitting Windows by the masses simultaneously?
There was nothing that would have explained a more than doubling of Linux desktop market share.
It was not that difficult to come up with a more likely explanations and some people where quick to mention AI crawlers/agents, which did actually explode in numbers.
But why would those crawlers participate in the steam survey?
The latest results I saw from steam actually showed an increase in Windows 11 market share.
The 10% was based on browser user agents.
I’m on pro Linux side and still think that trend was pushed by AI scrappers.
Man I’ve seen it used in doctors offices. I think it’s picking up a lot.
No offence to the artist but the WSL Tux is ugly af
they deserve the hate
If it were me I’d have gone with
but with penguin instead of cat(Windows get it?)
What a sicko.
Why not try promoting the Linux desktop as a platform that makes it easy to use AI bots?
