Another fresh month and so we have the latest operating system market share details from Statcounter, and it's another impressive showing for Linux from August 2024.
The problem is I don’t think I believe those numbers represent actual desktop use as an exclusive desktop use platform.
They’re just ‘someone visited a website with a linux user agent’, which could mean an awful lot of things ranging from someone doing automated scraping with a headless chrome, to an actual user, to someone just plain lying about what OS they’re using in order to break fingerprinting.
The number goes up and down WAY too much percentage-wise between months for it to be a really good measure of how much linux on the desktop there actually is, as much as I’d like it to be true :/
Well, I currently have my browser set to fake my user agent as windows on my linux desktop. So it’s not overestimated in every case. I suspect it’s a bit higher than the true percentage, but not by very much.
At the end of the day it’s still good news. The accuracy isn’t important as is overall visibility and status in the public conscious. Folks downplay steamdeck, deepin, and chrome os, but more usage even if limited can cause a significant snowball effect which I believe will happen with steam os being formalized. The linux challenge and proton have, and will continue to do wonders for linux in the public conscious, eventually leading to better support.
While I know the M word is often seen as bad, I’ve long thought Linux could benefit from some actual real marketing that’s utterly divorced from any nerd shit ;)
As to who in the world would pay for that, I have no idea, but there’s a lot of like about Linux if you could get a slick, clean, polished explanation and NOT have some Linux nerdbeard (like, say, myself) try to explain, well, any of it.
Well, in 2009 it was what? like .5% of all desktops or something? Can’t really go down from there.
I don’t disagree the trend is up, I mostly disagree that the number provided is accurate and is likely wildly wrong: it’s possible it’s wildly low, but I really don’t think so.
Anecdata: I know more people in my circles that have switched from running Linux on their computers than to running Linux. Almost 100% of the switchers moved to Mwhatever Macbooks because they got tired of dealing with the shit that is x86 laptop hardware, and Linux use was the casualty of shitty hardware.
someone just plain lying about what OS they’re using in order to break fingerprinting.
The idea with avoiding fingerprinting is to look like whatever the biggest group of users looks like, because that’s who you share the fingerprint with. If you use an uncommon value for something, you make fingerprinting easier.
That’s one of the reasons why for example Vivaldi on Linux sets its user agent to match the latest version Chrome on Windows.
The problem is I don’t think I believe those numbers represent actual desktop use as an exclusive desktop use platform.
They’re just ‘someone visited a website with a linux user agent’, which could mean an awful lot of things ranging from someone doing automated scraping with a headless chrome, to an actual user, to someone just plain lying about what OS they’re using in order to break fingerprinting.
The number goes up and down WAY too much percentage-wise between months for it to be a really good measure of how much linux on the desktop there actually is, as much as I’d like it to be true :/
Well, I currently have my browser set to fake my user agent as windows on my linux desktop. So it’s not overestimated in every case. I suspect it’s a bit higher than the true percentage, but not by very much.
At the end of the day it’s still good news. The accuracy isn’t important as is overall visibility and status in the public conscious. Folks downplay steamdeck, deepin, and chrome os, but more usage even if limited can cause a significant snowball effect which I believe will happen with steam os being formalized. The linux challenge and proton have, and will continue to do wonders for linux in the public conscious, eventually leading to better support.
.
This is coming from experience in marketing.
While I know the M word is often seen as bad, I’ve long thought Linux could benefit from some actual real marketing that’s utterly divorced from any nerd shit ;)
As to who in the world would pay for that, I have no idea, but there’s a lot of like about Linux if you could get a slick, clean, polished explanation and NOT have some Linux nerdbeard (like, say, myself) try to explain, well, any of it.
But the trend is up between 2009 and now.
Well, in 2009 it was what? like .5% of all desktops or something? Can’t really go down from there.
I don’t disagree the trend is up, I mostly disagree that the number provided is accurate and is likely wildly wrong: it’s possible it’s wildly low, but I really don’t think so.
Anecdata: I know more people in my circles that have switched from running Linux on their computers than to running Linux. Almost 100% of the switchers moved to Mwhatever Macbooks because they got tired of dealing with the shit that is x86 laptop hardware, and Linux use was the casualty of shitty hardware.
The idea with avoiding fingerprinting is to look like whatever the biggest group of users looks like, because that’s who you share the fingerprint with. If you use an uncommon value for something, you make fingerprinting easier.
That’s one of the reasons why for example Vivaldi on Linux sets its user agent to match the latest version Chrome on Windows.