StatCounter’s trend lines for Windows version market share. Click here to embiggen
Posted on 02/05/2018 7:36:21 PM PST by dayglored
OS-detection services disagree on which Windows reigns
Web analytics outfit StatCounter last week trumpeted news that Windows 10’s market share overtook Windows 7’s for the first time in January 2018. But other ratings services didn’t find the same result.
StatCounter’s assessment of Windows version market share for January 2018 suggested that Windows 10 scored 42.78 per cent of Windows’ market share, as measured by worldwide internet. That compared to 41.86 per cent for Windows 7.
Here’s a pretty graph showing the trend.
StatCounter’s trend lines for Windows version market share. Click here to embiggen
Before you figure out how to start selling champagne to Microsoft offices, consider that StatCounter has a rival named Netmarketshare and that its January 2018 data has Windows 10 on 34.29 per cent market share, well behind Windows 7’s 42.39 per cent.
Both sites compile their data by watching traffic to real live websites. Netmarketshare says that it considers “100 million valid sessions per month, widely distributed over thousands of websites.” StatCounter says its methodology sees it work “on the basis of more than 10 billion page views per month, by people from all over the world onto our 2 million+ member sites.”
Which is more accurate? That’s hard to say as both are ultimately black boxes.
What we can say with some certainty is that if StatCounter is right, Microsoft has taken two-and-a-half years since Windows 10’s July 2015 launch to beat a product launched in July 2009.
Perhaps that champagne business wasn’t such a good idea after all. ®
Yep. I have been working with Win10 at work (I'm a Sysadmin and support a lot of Win10 users), and I have not yet found any useful UI functions that Win10 has, that Win7 doesn't have, except of course for the things that Microsoft has declared shall only be released for Win10, like the latest version of MS-Office.
OTOH, I have found many useful UI functions that Win7 has, that Win10 does not have. And after 2-1/2 years, Microsoft has more than used up my patience, waiting for Win10 to catch up to where Win7 was half a decade ago.
That said, the underlying OS of Win10 is improved over Win7. It's snappy and very stable. But the Win10 UI just plain sucks IMO and it ruins the experience for me. Classic Shell is a great improvement; it makes Win10 usable.
“...Linux Mint Cinnamon. Easier than Windows 10 by a mile....”
Absolutely! We keep one old desktop in the corner with WIN 7 for anything that we might need windows for....which isn’t much these days. After a disastrous Win 10 experience, both my wife’s laptop, and mine, went straight to Linux Mint Cinnamon, and we’ve never looked back on those two machines. Very pleased with that system on those older laptops. Upgraded em to SSDs and added a little extra RAM and they run Linux flawlessly...and quick too!
FWIW, my main desktop is an old 27” iMac of mid-2010 vintage that’s running High Sierra iOS. This machine keeps me happy with whatever I need to do on the web. I like the big screen. :)
Windows 10 is running on a Dell that is 8 years old. There are some graphic limitations otherwise it runs fine.
Yes I have. I got tired of memory sucking Cortana. has she ever helped anybody at any time??? I lost my free Win 7 games on the UPGRADE!! I got a virus from my homepage of Yahoo! 8 days ago I stripped Win 10 off and went with Zorin. I love it. Faster. No bloat. No spying. No viruses.
Dead as a doornail
True that. I love 8.1.
Win 8.1 runs all my legacy applications. The metro screen is very configurable and only seen when I want to open a program not on the task bar. All the 'apps' are disabled, as are automatic updates. Windows Defender on; JavaScript turned off in Firefox, Java and Flash disabled = no virus.
Life is good.
I still have XP...but going to have to go the Win 10 route...sooner or later.
Glad to hear it! Carry on!
Mine froze while doing the installation.
Perhaps the HD was about to crash anyway but it was still frustrating.
Good luck with the transition. Some folks love Win10, others hate it, but one thing is sure -- it's REAL different from WinXP.
Hold onto your hat. :-) I do sincerely hope you enjoy it.
> “Can’t stand cortana”
I just disabled it. I run most programs from icons on my desktop screen, and don’t notice much change in the user interface from one version to another. (I updated because I want to keep getting security updates.)
I tried disabling Cortana . Couldn’t .
Would love to uninstall it. But it wouldn’t let me
I want to try Linux mint and some of the others suggested here
And also these amazing Linux privacy distros.
https://techlog360.com/secure-linux-distributions-privacy-protection/
Qubes OS is the Fedora-based security-focused Linux operating system. Unlike other secure Linux distro, Qube OS implements a Security by Isolation approach, so that when some malicious software compromises one of the components of the system, it would get access to only the data inside that environment. Qubes uses the security of the Xen hypervisor, the same software relied on by many major hosting providers to isolate websites and services from each other.
To improve your privacy and anonymity on the internet, Qube uses Whonix and Tor to filter all network traffic. Qube OS is the recommended security-oriented Linux distro by many experts — Edward Snowden using it..
Cortana and windows 10 suck imo
Thanx Zorin Linux sounds great
Thanks Linux mint sounds good
I’m a Windows 7 fan. Have talked with a few technicians over the phone lately and they all had Windows 7 by choice.
I have friends who “upgraded” from 7 to 10 and didn’t like it. I suggested Classic Shell and now they’re ok with 10.
When I upgraded from XP to Win 7, I used Classic Shell to make the learning process easier. Hell of a product!
I no longer recall how I myself disabled Cortana, but here's a site that suggests a couple of methods:
"...there are two ways to do this task. The first option is by launching Cortana from the search bar on the taskbar. Then, from the left pane click the settings button, and under "Cortana" (the first option) and slide the pill switch to the Off position. The second option is by launching the Settings app and on Privacy, go to Speech, inking, & typing, and click Stop getting to know me."
Microsoft is trying to force me to save all my documents in Windows/10 - Word/10, by making it impossible to save docs in Windows 7 or Word 7. But then when I send those docs to anyone else they can not open Windows 10 or Word 10. So Microsoft is trying to force everyone to buy their product. I do consulting reports and send the finished report by email to my clients.
I rather like the idea of running Linux instead of Windows, but over the years I’ve accumulated probably 70 or 80 freeware problems written for Windows (I have about 20 for music alone). Chances are I wouldn’t be able to find comparable Linux programs for most of them.
Despite the security risks of Windows, I’ve been on the net for decades and never knowingly acquired a virus — knock on wood! —that is, a virus not caught by my antivirus programs. I’m careful, though, about the source of the programs that I download, and careful in general.
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