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Linux has over 6% of the desktop market? Yes, you read that right - here's how (www.zdnet.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Clickbaity title on the original article, but I think this is the most important point to consider from it:

After getting to 1% in approximately 2011, it took about a decade to double that to 2%. The jump from 2% to 3% took just over two years, and 3% to 4% took less than a year.

Get the picture? The Linux desktop is growing, and it's growing fast.

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[-] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago

Statcounter considers me a Win user due to the Win user agent I'm using, this is not a rare behavior in the Linux space..

[-] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

Out of genuine curiosity, what is the reasoning for using the Win user agent?

[-] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

it also obfuscates fingerprinting

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

I thought this may be one of the considerations.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

Some sites provide a different behaviour depending on the reported OS

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

I thought this may be a consideration too, but I would expect it to be a minority of websites that would do this, no?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

It's definitely a minority, but easy to fix if you encounter such a site even a single time. There are also some sites which refuse to load on Firefox but work fine if you change the user-agent to Chrome.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks!

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

The only thing I can think of is default download links based on your reported OS. What other functionality would be OS gated?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Because Linux +firefox is like a fingerprinting wet dream, I may be the only one in my locale. (maybe not anymore, but yeah)

Also Librewolf by default reports Win+Firefox.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Got it, thanks for explaining!

[-] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

I see you are using ethernet, welcome to Windows %user%!

this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025

696 points (98.9% liked)

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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