StatCounter’s June 2026 report shows Linux at one of its strongest recent positions, while Windows falls to 56.55%.
Windows Drops Under 60% in Global Desktop OS Share for the First Time in Years
https://linuxiac.com/windows-drops-under-60-in-global-desktop-os-share-for-the-first-time-in-years/
60 Comments
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world · 155 pts · 52d
Okay, but StatCounter's graph (edit: here) clearly shows that "unknown" is what's cannibalizing most of that – and this is specifically measuring web traffic.
"Lemmy celebrates the rise of bots polluting web traffic stats because they didn't bother to read the article beyond a misleading headline that reaffirms their biases."
NateNate60@lemmy.world · 49 pts · 52d
Looking at the included chart (below), I don't think the growth in "unknown" is the primary factor of Window's decline in market share. The chart does show, over the last two data points, that Mac OS and Linux have increased at the same time that Windows has decreased.
This is all but one data point anyway, so it's not fair to draw a long-term conclusion based on that regardless.
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 52d
Those "last two data points" are two months. For OS X, there's some upward movement the last two months (about 3%, which isn't a lot given it spiked late last year from 8.3% to 14.07% to 8.2% in a span of three points), while Linux is practically flatlined with a very light upward incline just the last month.
To the extent StatCounter is useful to begin with, the Linux point is functionally meaningless while the OS X increase of a few percentage points may or may not be significant; trying to divine a trend from twitches in those two points is reading noise. Look at the "unknown" line, meanwhile, and see how it begins mirroring Windows' decline around mid–late 2025. It rose from 11.3% in September 2025 to 21.5% in June 2026. That represents actual, meaningful, lasting change.
NateNate60@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 52d
Yes, that's pretty much what I said in the line of text under the graph.
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world · -9 pts · 52d
You completely debunk the idea that "I don't think the growth in "unknown" is the primary factor of Window's decline in market share." in the same comment you said it? Because what you said makes absolutely no sense in the face of the actual numbers.
I expound on the two points because you can't just rest your argument on them and then limply, vaguely disclaim that it's terrible methodology.
NateNate60@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 52d
Bruh people on Lemmy say the most mind-numbing things
Hawke@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 52d
Thank you for demonstrating.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 7 pts · 51d
How many Linux users use anti-fingerprinting extensions that prevent sites from seeing their OS? Wouldn't that place them in the "unknown" category?
dreamkeeper@literature.cafe · 5 pts · 51d
I'm not seeing much of an increase there for Mac or Linux. I'm not sure how you drew those conclusions from this graph.
NateNate60@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 51d
This is a zero sum graph, as market share must add to 100%. You may observe that the one large decrease in Windows market share occurs at the same time as three small increases for Mac OS, Linux, and "unknown".
Nothing else increased. The three small increases must be equal to the Windows decrease.
EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app · 23 pts · 52d
Hell yeah! bots polluting web traffic in a way that reaffirms my biases! 🥳
pHr34kY@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 51d
Most bots pretend to be Windows/Chrome or iOS/Safari.. just sayin'.
The increase is likely bots that don't even want to pretend to be Windows anymore.
MrMcGasion@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 51d
More likely new bots are all being vibecoded and aren't pretending to be anything because everything is stupid now.
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 51d
STOP POLLUTING MY WEB TRAFFIC YOU FUCKING BOT!
Anafabula@discuss.tchncs.de · 93 pts · 52d
Idk why everyone is always looking at statcounter. I still feel like Cloudflare probably has better data.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 35 pts · 52d
It feels like macOS is somehow over represented there. Specially for a global statistic. In many countries macs are completely residual, where I live I almost know more people using linux than mac.
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 35 pts · 52d
Anecdotally, I'm seeing a lot of bot traffic masquerading with a macOS user agent
Archer@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 50d
Makes sense, no commercial site wants to block rich people
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 51d
MacOS at 20% globally does seem to be extremely high. I would have expected something like 15 at most.
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 51d
These are http requests, so it could be inflated from the larger proportion of software engineers using macOS, who also make significantly more requests than average, including in their usage of ai...
dreamkeeper@literature.cafe · 8 pts · 51d
Maybe countries where macs are more popular throw it off. But I'd be surprised if even the US was over 20% for Mac (but not iOS).
Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de · 24 pts · 51d
Yep, seems about right.
The only thing this does not count are the offline devices. But in todays day and age, how many don't connect to the internet in some way or form?
cecinestpasunecommunication@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 50d
Offline devices would be either air gapped old windows or stability Linux, probably Debian.
Sidyctism2@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 pts · 51d
Whats up with android and iOS? They are counted, since they have their own colors, but shouldnt they be quite visible? I have a hard time believing there is more linux/macOS than android/iOS out there
Blackmist@feddit.uk · 7 pts · 51d
Device type of Desktop answers that I think...
Sidyctism2@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 pts · 50d
Whoopsiedoodles, my bad
LodeMike@lemmy.today · 0 pts · 51d
This graph is like trumps approval rating
pennomi@lemmy.world · 40 pts · 52d
ApeNo1@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 52d
“better than eating broken glass”
Oh, you mean better than Windows Vista Aero.
leavemealone@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 51d
You say that but did you know that our new bowl of broken glass now come with the new groovy lemon© * topping?
*** : the "groovy lemon" topping is not to be legally considered as lemon and may induce in some people nausea, headaches, cramps or digesting issues, the final user waive any legal rights or reclamation while using our products.
laurelraven@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 52d
I'm not sure they've even cleared that bar, to be honest
Fizz@lemmy.nz · 2 pts · 51d
I think Microsoft understands that and thats why their product is in the state it is.
cytro@mastodon.de · 1 pts · 51d
@Fizz @pennomi
Microsoft is going down.
Fizz@lemmy.nz · 2 pts · 51d
Microsoft desktop share is sure but its still the default and they dont care about non business uses
cytro@mastodon.de · 2 pts · 51d
@Fizz
Even they switch. Look at France, Germany, Europe.
Fizz@lemmy.nz · 2 pts · 51d
Ok its still dominated by windows. I'm hoping the trend of switching to linux continues but I'm still realistic about the situation. Which is that windows is not losing a huge marketshare. They are still comfortably in the lead and growing in the areas they actually care about.
vanillama@programming.dev · 2 pts · 51d
That, plus in the past there have been places in Europe switching to Linux and then switching back. It seems like many learned from that experience and they are following better plans to switch software over time (rather than replacing everything at once), but we'll see
Fizz@lemmy.nz · 2 pts · 51d
I'm hoping euOS can come out with a full desktop, MDM and idp stack and give businesses an easy way into the enterprise linux environment.
lvxferre@mander.xyz · 30 pts · 52d
HAL_9_TRILLION@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 29 pts · 52d
Well I can't speak for the whole world but by my Windows usage dropped 100% from 2025 to 2026.
fizzbang@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 52d
Quick add more dogshit unwanted features and spyware to extract the maximum value out of customers over the short term!
1984@lemmy.today · 19 pts · 51d
I hope they never recover.
fubarx@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 52d
"Unknown" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Mio@feddit.nu · 11 pts · 52d
It looks like Windows computers is going to unknown. So they are just bad at detecting OS.
Marija_@programming.dev · 16 pts · 51d
I'm not surprised. Between privacy concerns, forced features, and Linux becoming easier to use, the barrier to switching is lower than it used to be.
manuremy@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 50d
I just Minted my old laptop that I last used like.. 2-3 years ago to try out Ubuntu (which didn't go well.) The progress is huge and I'm really very confused on how well things work now, even all my games on Steam?? When did this all happen?? Gonna make the switch on my main PC in few weeks.
Marija_@programming.dev · 4 pts · 50d
Proton has been a huge game changer tho
NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone · 16 pts · 52d
Incoming rename to Copilot OS.
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 51d
I dual boot my AsshairTrimmer with CopilotOS and Arsch btw.
VanRado@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 51d
VanRado@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 51d
Aren't they making a CopilotOS?
mrbigmouth502@piefed.zip · 12 pts · 51d
That number seems rather low. I can see that number for overall OS share, including mobile devices, but for desktop I'd expect Windows to be a lot higher.
EDIT: Thinking about it further, if you included mobile devices, then Android would have to be even higher than Windows is here. Either way, these numbers look off.
NM_Gringo@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 51d
Even if the numbers are a little off, that's a wonderful sight. Those of us using Linux for decades it feels like the early days of the internet when AOL users came flooding in.
Blackmist@feddit.uk · 10 pts · 51d
I'd take that with a big pinch of salt since the shortfall is "unknown". Probably means they're picking up a fuck ton of bot traffic and there's nobody at the wheel over at StatCounter...
jeena@piefed.jeena.net · 9 pts · 52d
What?
paraphrand@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 52d
Wow, breaking 15%. :blinking-guy:
coredev@programming.dev · 7 pts · 51d
I will switch to a computer for work with Linux or MacOS. The current situation with Windows is not OK. You need to get your shit together again basically.
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 52d
Oh no... anyways.
Now I run windows on my surfing machine and my gaming machine. Otherwise I have no use for it, and what a boondoggle 11 was
andyburke@fedia.io · 10 pts · 52d
Browsers and most games run on linux. Why keep using an OS with a profit motive behind it that's often against your best interests as a user?
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 52d
Mostly laziness. Moving all my links/games is a time sink I will eventually have to do. But that time I just don't have atm.
If I were to build a new machine there is no way I'm buying a windows license. I doubt I'll ever buy or need on personally.
Work is another nightmare, but I think many of us know that pain.
andyburke@fedia.io · 8 pts · 52d
Hope you can find the time. Not sure why you're getting downvoted. These are reasonable reasons.
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 52d
I'll do my best, I think this winter will be when I can make time.
piccolo@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 51d
Bookmarks can easily be transferred and for games... well, just install a new boot drive and mount the drive with the games and call it a day.