Despite Microsoft’s push to get customers onto Windows 11, growth in the market share of the software giant’s latest operating system has stalled, while Windows 10 has made modest gains, according to fresh figures from Statcounter.
This is not the news Microsoft wanted to hear. After half a year of growth, the line for Windows 11 global desktop market share has taken a slight downturn, according to the website usage monitor, going from 35.6 percent in October to 34.9 percent in November. Windows 10, on the other hand, managed to grow its share of that market by just under a percentage point to 61.8 percent.
The dip in usage comes just as Microsoft has been forcing full-screen ads onto the machines of customers running Windows 10 to encourage them to upgrade. The stats also revealed a small drop in the market share of its Edge browser, despite relentlessly plugging the application in the operating system.
People found out about the Win10 IoT LTSC version, which Microsoft alleges to be supporting for 10 more years.
It comes with basically zero of the M$ bloat that everyone hates, as well. It’s just Windows.
I just installed it on my father’s new (old) laptop, because he is not ready for Linux yet – possibly ever.
It has no:
- Cortana
- Copilot
- Windows Media Player
- OneDrive
- Office 365 Nag
- Candy crush, Solitaire collection, etc.
- Ads and nags on the lock screen
- “Finish setting up your device and create a Microsoft Account!!!” nag every X number of bootups
- Xbox Game Bar
- Microsoft Store
- Etc.
It does come with Edge.
Because it does not have the Microsoft Store you have to manually install anything that comes as a store app from the command line. I was taken by surprise that the Duckduckgo browser is packaged this way. But you can still do it. Normal programs install just fine.
Yes, you can use it for gaming.
Edit: I guess I forgot to drop the obligatory link to https://massgrave.dev/ , which is how I found out about this and got it running. Also hosted there is a tool that allows you to… license… various Microsoft products including your shiny new Win10 IoT install.
holy fuck that sounds absolutely awesome. why wasn’t I on this version to begin with hahah
I bought an i7 NUC to use as HTPC some years ago. It has W10 IoT on it. Handles Dolby Atmos like a charm & 4K to a degree (YouTube. Last time i checked, Windows still liked to give 4K media files a purple hue)
Sounds like Linux but worse. Got my dad on Mint and all he ever uses is a browser and mail program (2nd one is optional)
Is that because he can’t figure out how to do fuck all in Linux?
Me too
Believe it or not my pops is readonably tech savvy. He was an engineer and does industrial control automation, and there are a lot of software suites for that which are firmly Windows only. Hardware license dongles and the whole bit. Our chances of getting that to run in Wine are below zero.
I’m still using Windows 10 on my personal work laptop, and I’ve got to say that what you’ve described sounds pretty appealing. Windows 10 with most of the crapware removed, and extended support. That sounds like a good deal…
But on the flip side, I think it’s a bad idea to get an OS from a piracy site. Maybe it’s all genuine and tickety-boo, but being a reputable 3rd party source is a fairly high bar. I certainly wouldn’t trust a site I’ve never heard of to give me a legitimate copy of a better-than-standard version of Windows. Their offer to verify their own files is less than convincing. I think I’d need to be an active part of the scene to be able to trust something like that - because it certainly smells like an easy way to get back-doored.
You install windows as standard (from MS directly), selecting the IoT version during setup. Afaik it’s on GH so you can view the scripts, copy/paste if you don’t trust the downloaded .ps1, etc.
I ran the OS for a couple months on a system and had no issues. No funky activity reported (no more than usual) with snort, no alerts from sophos. I didn’t extensively verify it, but I don’t have any suspicions to report.
I agree. I need to trust where the OS (or any software) comes from. I’d rather get a legitimate windows copy and then debloat it and turn off telemetry and other BS myself. Then I know I’m good on both counts. But apparently the IoT LTSC version is legit, not a cracked copy. This is the first I’ve ever heard of it.
If the LTSC was the actual Windows then they wouldn’t be losing any market share. That shit is crazy nice
Yeah, well. They make most of their money off of advertising revenue and the spyware bullshit. License sales are one and done per user, so there’s no recurring revenue there. And probably even less than that because everyone – individual users at least – just pirates Windows anyway.
I know I sure as hell do. And I’m not recommending anyone else not do so, either…
absolutely legendary you are mate
Windows Media Player
What do you have against it? The original was better I grant you that.
It doesn’t do anything VLC doesn’t do except try to steal your file extensions all the damn time.
VLC is better but a basic media player has been part of Windows for decades now. Any decent OS will come with one. The default on most Linux distros isn’t much better.
An ad blitz doesn’t matter if your product is junk. Make something that isn’t garbage if you want to retain people, people want good products.
Microsoft has realised they have a captive market and are milking it for every dollar (euro, pound, yen, rupee…) they can get.
It isn’t really captive.
People are rapidly moving away from laptop/desktop computers and applications now a days are predominantly web based which means people can use anything that runs Chrome.
means people can use anything that runs Chrome.
Yeah, but a lot of work things are painfully uncomfortable to use on a phone (ERP and EMR software is so much easier to use with a keyboard, mouse and properly sized screen) and most companies aren’t going to be running Linux because of all the extra support load, nor are they going to yeet Macs at regular everyday users. Chromebooks don’t really get taken seriously in corporate environments IMO.
Similarly, home users who are old school and still want to have a computer - some will switch to Macs, power users will switch to Linux (and switch their family to Linux), but many will just use Windows. Some will use Chromebooks, but those have a bad rep because they used to always be the lowest spec possible (I think it’s gotten better now?)
And finally, gamers - personally I use Linux for gaming. Hell, I used Gentoo Linux for years. Yes, for gaming. But a lot of people, particularly younger folks, want to play games with invasive anti-cheat. And those don’t run on Linux.
This is gonna blow your mind, but most (real) phones you can connect a mouse and keyboard to, either via Bluetooth, or with a USBC adapter, and they work fine.
I know. But then you also need a screen. At which point why not have a device that can run a desktop OS?
Phones have screens already!
No they don’t, they have tiny keyholes to look through
Businesses are bound to Microsoft Office products which only reliably work on Windows and Mac. Windows is the cheaper of the two, by far, and there are way more IT professionals that are able to work comfortably managing Windows systems than Mac ones.
Me: Hmmmmmm, maybe it’s time for a new PC. Lets see what’s out there.
Stores: Windows 10 and 11
Me: Nevermind!
May I interest you in our lord and saviour linux?
You mean, THIS LINUX???
deleted by creator
Yeah, I use and love Linux, but it’s unusable on random unsupported hardware.
For the person who posted it, it could also be that the hardware IS supported, but it’s so obscure that no mainstream distro includes it in their kernel build, not even as a module.
Of course, for the average person, not having the kernel module built pretty much means it’s unsupported.
That’s why I wish they’d release a concept like the Raspberry Pi, but for fully realized mini-pc’s. The thing I love about it is I could have 10 SD cards all sitting in a box. And I slide one in, now my raspberry pi is a retro gaming emulation machine.
Then I turn it off. Slide a different SD card in. Now it’s a pihole.
Slide a different card in, now it’s home automation.
Any new distro you want to try, slide out the sd card, slide in a new one. Your old distro is saved exactly how it was. Just slide it back in, and it’s exactly like you left it.
No commitment.
And the hardware is centralized. So if the distro is built for the raspberry pi, you KNOW it’ll work. The downside is, it’s a rinky dink little arm machine.
Except with real PCs users expect some performance, so these would have to be swappable NVMes. Which is of course prohibitively expensive.
But for a Raspberry, yeah, the ability to turn my Kodi box into a game console is awesome
I work at an MSP and a lot of our clients have to follow specific security compliance standards. Because Windows 10 is eol soon, we’ve been slowly upgrading folks to 11. I die a little each time I do an upgrade. People, including my coworkers and I, are not happy with it overall, but nobody can do anything because ✨compliance standards✨
thank goodness for bsd/mac/linux
I know executives don’t tend to go for it but you could always get in a ESU for 3 years past the EoL date. That was semi popular with Windows 7.
That involves money and clients don’t want to do that lol. It’s like pulling teeth to get them to replace shit
Our old asses are over here learning mint and Ubuntu on new machines. That wasn’t on our 30s-40s disco card.
It’s fun. Everything looks good, then attach the external monitor to the laptop and it won’t detect. There’s a workaround, there’s almost always a workaround, but these basics of windows are in pieces in Linux.
The basic expectations with windows, like monitor detection, aren’t necessarily there.
Spite is a hell of a fuel though. Oh and I still have my win 10 disc and put a fresh install on another machine.
The Steam Deck and it’s desktop mode are why I decided to try jumping head first into a single boot of Bazzite on my main computer, it’s basically like using a Steam deck, just across four monitors, a year in and I haven’t looked back.
linux desperately needs/needed something like apple for macOS to drive usability. the steam deck is exactly that- one hardware set to really nail the UX and then expand from there.
thanks for the recommendation, I’m going to give that a try myself!
Sunshine worked right out the box too. Very much recommend bazzite. Tried pop os and just could not get sunshine to work with my 3060.
I plugged in a monitor yesterday on my work laptop 's HDMI port and it did nothing. After some troubleshooting I apparently had to unplug the USB-C dock for it to work. Let’s not pretend Windows is smooth sailing all the time.
At a meeting I was given some kind of remote dongle to duplicate my screen to a monitor and it did nothing. Had to run some exe first. Again, not plug and play.
But there was always a workaround.
Is it a Dell? I’ve had all kinds of goofy problems like that with Dell hardware. The old ass port replicator my job gave me in 2014 can run 3 screens + laptop flawlessly but every one I’ve received since then can only do 2 screens or 3 screens and no laptop. It’s stupid.
Mint and Ubuntu are Debian based.
Try something Fedora based. I’ve had far less issues with it when it comes to hardware.
Me: Debian? Fedora? Why are you making up words as if I speak other languages you made up???
they are both like 20 year-old operating systems (linux distros)
#include <iostream>
int main() { std::cout << “no, this is a different language” << std::endl; return 0; }
(All joking aside, the content was made for someone who already knew what a Distro was. If you want to know, feel free to ask for more info)
A lot of the time I’ll “get” jokes. I don’t find most of them funny, but I get the joke. Then someone will accuse me of not being smart enough to get the joke. It’s like “no no, I got the punchline…it’s just not funny.” Then I get insulted that they think I’m dumb.
With your joke…yeah…I actually am too dumb to get it. Part of me thinks Lemmy had some script error, and part of me thinks you’re making some script based joke…in any event, give that joke some wings, because it just flew over my head.
Sometimes I wonder what’s going on with other peoples’ setups. Like where do all these issues come from?
I just plug in my external monitors, usually through the usb-c hub at work so both of them at the same time. But sometimes just a single one. Always gets detected. I’ve had Debian and now TumbleWeed on my work computer, neither gave me an issue with this.
There are other issues I’m having - such as I wish I didn’t have to open the lid for a second and then close it back when I’ve just connected the externals and want to use it in clamshell mode (as Apple calls it; idk if there’s a name for it outside of Mac/Apple). But all the expected functionality is there.
Strange. I have a displaylink box ar home. My Ubuntu machine works first time every time. My wife’s Windows 11 PC takes 10 minutes of stuffing around every time I try to connect it.
that’s why i switched to a mac instead of linux. i love linux on my servers, but for day to day productivity? nothing beats the “turn it on and go” of a mac. of course you pay for it with money (for a mac) or time (for linux)
but at least i don’t get full screen ads for windows 11!
I tried the apple ecosystem way back when.
Fuck me I hated iTunes!
So glad to be out of that walled garden
Can I put an Nvidia 4090 in a mac for AI and gaming purposes?
do you really not know the answer to that?
No, I have an IQ below 42, pardon my mental disability sir.
We have a job opening for you in the coming administration, are you going to be available for a job starting in january ?
you must have a sad life to throw politics in so randomly. stop watching Fox News and get some sunshine
I was almost gonna be a smartass and say you can, but then I realized that there are no nVidia drivers. You CAN use an AMD external GPU on newer Intel Macs, but even the newest Intel Mac is pretty old now. They still get software support, but the performance isn’t comparable to Apple Silicon anymore, so you’d have to sacrifice a lot of CPU power and efficiency to be able to use an eGPU that doesn’t even have CUDA.
I generally like my work mac, but external monitor support (used as an example against Linux here) is awful.
Sure, if you connect one (1) monitor and still use the laptop screen, it’s fine. But try to connect multiple, or disable the laptop screen, or try to lock the dock to your main monitor and you have to jump through all sorts of hoops or it just doesn’t work.
In the end, macos is just another OS, a good one in general, but definitely not without it’s quirks and issues. I run Arch (btw) with KDE/Plasma on my own desktop and am very happy with it
Windows 11 is a privacy invasion. It’s the worst OS I have ever used for a day and a half.
Windows 11 is: buggy (Remember That bug where AMD Cpus where slow with 11), slow,maybe training your personal data on ai (Maybe),Very Ugly,Cannot be customized.
I hate Windows 11, for a multitude of reasons. But it is still a better experience than Vista. An unbelievably better than Windows ME. Windows ME for me was the worst desktop OS I think I’ve ever used. If we open it up to just any old OS, then I want to say Novell was the worst I ever used.
I was fortunately running top of the line hardware when Vista came out. I didn’t understand all the hate at all… until I sat down and did some work on my uncle’s computer with Vista Basic. Holy shit, even with all of the features that required better hardware removed from the OS, it was the slowest and most miserable experience I ever had on a computer. It was brand new and covered in stickers advertising Vista and it still wasn’t capable of running the damn OS.
That was true with nearly every computer I touched that had it on it.
Mine was awesome though. No complaints.
I haven’t used 11, but it sounds like they’ve done it again.
I feel like I’m alone in this but Vista was great. I preferred it and 8 over 7 and 10.
How? The 7 and 10 are among the better received versions of Windows, for stability, performance, hardware compatibility, etc. What was your experience with Vista that was so good and 7 and 10 being so bad?
Everything that people liked about 7 was a thing in Vista. AFAIK, people hate on Vista for performance, the automatic updates and the admin access pop-ups. The first one is because they tried to upgrade old XP hardware, a new system ran fine. 7 didn’t really increase performance, people just had new computers by that point. The other 2 issues never changed since, people just got used to them.
8 had an amazing search feature that got completely garbled in 10. The “start menu” wasn’t well received, but worked fine. 10 brought back a smaller compromise version of it. 10 also has much more telemetry, came with the Cortana and default edge Bing searches and had overall a much less pleasant experience.
I feel like Vista and 8 get a bad rep because they where so different from the previous ones, even though they rolled some of that into the successors and worked really well. And 10 really accelerated the enshitification of Windows.
Well, Microsoft said way back when that “Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows” so a lot of enterprise went to it. To this day I’m dealing with vendors that have a certified “Windows 10-only” solution. Another funny one is stuff like Ford’s FDRS software still only officially supports Windows 10 Pro.
Platform changes and all that are fine, but when Microsoft says basically “This is gonna be your LTS forever” and then bails on it, shit like this is no surprise at all.
I’ll admit to some ‘asterisk’ to that.
So a developer evangelist said “because Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, we’re all still working on Windows 10”. So the media ran with the most intuitive interpretation of that language and expanded on it and declared that Microsoft was basically changing to a rolling release model. Note that folks say “he meant latest, not last”.
Meanwhile, Microsoft’s formal lifecycle statement said, from the onset, that it wasn’t going to be supported in 10 years.
However, Microsoft did nothing to clarify the rampant coverage. So I’m still on the side of “the popular impression among people was eternally supported rolling release”. Just acknowledging that, formally, they did designate 10 the same way they had designated previous versions.
I agree with you fully, and that’s my main point. Their own forums were full of the question being repeatedly asked and dismissed, granted by “MVP’s” or independent advisors who have no link to the internal development or plans, they should have stepped up their messaging. The enterprise I work for pays them a fuckton of money, and we even have our own dedicated account reps who sang the same tune those fuckers on the forums did, and they were legit Microsoft employees. When W10’s EOL was announced they sent over a lot of gift baskets to our VP’s over that shit, because we knew how many mission critical systems we had that just got fucked in the ass, and our budgetary outlays just changed.
Complete fucking asshole move, and it could’ve been much better if the messaging were just handled differently.
Yeah, I strongly suspect there was a camp within Microsoft that was 100% pushing for ‘rolling release’ model for the OS versus another traditionalist camp that said there would be new major upgrades. Further, I bet rather than reconciling those perspectives, they just let both camps continue on under their own assumption, until eventually the traditionalists won out and got ‘Windows 11’, finalizing which way the company was going to actually go.
im forced to use it at work and holy shit. 11 is so heavy for no reason, 8gb of ram is not remotely enough anymore, even if you yank out some of the garbage. theres no apparent change in functionality to justify it.
the ssd smart says its almost at its end, and i suspect its because its constantly swapping. paging file is always full, unless i set it to something big like 8+ gb
It’s just a hunch, but my suspicion is it’s already capturing a lot of data for Recall to process later after it’s launched.
I can’t think of any other reasonable explanation for the severe performance decrease on Windows 11.
No, 8 GB is nothing these days. It’s not an enjoyable experience on Win 10, 12, Linux, or MacOS.
The 8 gigs in my Thinkpad seem fine with Mint
The 8 GB in my ThinkPad is pretty annoying. It’s usable but not enjoyable.
what do you use it for to be filling 8gb on linux?
Opening a few apps fills it up very quickly.
I even run Spotifyd and a cli UI for Spotify because I need to be conservative with my RAM.
curious. im running all regular gui software and i usually only go over 8gb when im pushing it harder. the only time i do consistently is while gaming and even then im always below 16gb.
what distro are you running? do you have KSM enabled?
I would guess a heavy UI, and a couple heavy apps that they don’t close.
I admittedly use xfce, which is much lighter than most, I wouldn’t want to run Gnome or KDE on this machine.
Or I suppose I think I wouldn’t; I’ve been using lightweight desktop environments for a decade or so. I just assume the like Ubuntu or whatever default is going to be slower and RAM-heavy.
its great on linux (regular distro, not particularly lightweight) and reasonable on windows 10 for me.
unless you are pushing too many tabs and/or many heavy programs
What… How is that even possible? Are new machines being sold with 10 instead of 11?
My guess is either people are downgrading, or enough people are dropping Windows entirely after previously using Windows 11 (whether by switching to Mac or Linux, or by deciding that they don’t need laptops at all and can get by with just an iPad or something) to affect the percentages.
Edit: oh, also Chromebooks. I bet it’s a lot of people switching to ChromeOS.
I’d love if it were Linux but its probably macs, mostly due to their superior battery life (compared to Windows).
Anecdotally my parents bit the bullet switched to Macs after using Windows 11 and all its unnecessary changes from 10. It was death by a thoudand cuts for them, where simple processes like search and printers are radically different than before. If they gotta learn a new system, might as well learn something that works.
I literally just remembered that ChromeOS is a thing. I bet a big chunk is people seeing that they’re cheaper and deciding to switch to those. So, in a way, it kind of is Linux.
Ah… Yeah, I’d wager the bulk is going to phones and tablets, and that should be extremely telling for anyone at Microsoft trying to enshittify 11.
I don’t think many people are changing OSs on their laptops, but you may be right about them ditching laptops altogether. 15 years everybody had a computer, now many people just get by with a phone.
Yeah, probably the switches that are making any meaningful impact to the statistics are Windows 11 users buying a Mac (edit: or a Chromebook). I don’t doubt that there is a higher than usual number of Windows users switching to Linux because of Microsoft’s latest nonsense, but you’re right that it’s probably not the biggest part of this stat.
Yeah I bet people are just getting by with a phone. There’s an entire generation that uses phones for 95% of their computer needs.
I’m using a phone app right now haha.
Yes, there are Win 10 machines still being sold, and because they aren’t eligible to upgrade to 11, they’re dirt cheap. I suspect this is the main driver behind Win 10 growing market share.
Again, this is awesome but probably not the main factor, as most people dont know how to install an OS.
Step one is to run format C,
Then shits broke and the automatic repair likely won’t be able to make heads or tails of it, doubt sfc or dism will help to much… so they will open Google on their phone and realize they should have created a recovery drive before formatting the C drive.
But now they know!
I mean, if you even have to go into the bios or dip into the mechanics of drive letters and formatting, you have already lost most people.
Im just tired of driving 50 miles each way to work again. If I can get more people to fuck up their computers locally maybe I can start a local job 🤷
The dip in usage comes just as Microsoft has been forcing full-screen ads onto the machines of customers running Windows 10 to encourage them to upgrade.
Yeah no shit! When my computer does full-screen, disruptive things that I didn’t tell it to do, I figure out how to remove that malware. I’ve been off Windows at home for about a month now, thanks Linux Mint! Getting some games to work has been challenging, but most things have just worked and quite a few work much better!
Performance is up overall, and my confidence that my computer isn’t running a bunch of secret ad and spy ware is way up. Hardware like my gamepad and microphone would randomly disconnect and have issues on Windows, all working perfectly now.
Unfortunately I’m still deep in MS land for work, but there’s almost a comedic quality to it. Everything’s very slow, everyone has constant issues with Teams, or Office online, or Dynamics, or copilot shoving it’s tendrils into everything. Watching businesses struggle to keep operating in the face of Microsoft’s inadequacy is like being a mechanic watching a motor grind to a halt because the owner/manufacturer replaced all the oil with syrup.
Like yes, it’s my problem to fix, but I’m just glad it’s not my car.
Welcome fellow minter. Try Steam / Proton… simple and seemless for a huge chunk of games.
I still fail to see how windows 11 was anything but a collusion scam to sell new hardware.
None of the changes including TPM requirements required a new iteration. Nothing about the underlying NT dropped any of the old and antiquated BS despite Microsoft hiring some morons to advertise the fact on reddit to all the insiders asking questions.
They even let the media pick up a fake report that Windows 11 was related to the Core OS and a brand new kernel was in the works.
If Microsoft wanted a marketing strategy, they could have properly started naming feature updates and adverising them similar to Apple.
8, 10, and 11 have also been a pain on enterprise because Microsoft axed their QA team. I seriously hope any new firms start considering linux desktop as a valid option. All they really need is a vendor to offer a solid distro along with an agreement to rapidly create/deploy any software solution so they don’t get scared looking at the cheap entry windows stuff.
It was Microsoft’s kickback to Intel and later Qualcomm.
None of the changes including TPM requirements required a new iteration.
This is completely wrong.
The TPM is a hardware feature, so you need to update the whole system. The software patch is too slow to be useful.
The uptake level is expected given falling PC sales and the fact that upgrading is limited.
The TPM is not a dedicated cryptographic processor, it’s an external keystore with a few select functions. You’re thinking of an HSM which is used almost exclusively in servers that have to handle thousands of secrets per second.
CPUs have had dedicated AES hardware for decades which is why LUKS and Bitlocler use it by default.
The TPM just allows certain keys and secrets to be generated and stored physically separate from the CPU as a security measure.
Bitlocker and LUKS will store a master key in the TPM so that you don’t have to enter a password every time you boot. They retrieve it from the TPM and then use it to unlock the actual encryption key which is done entirely in the CPU. If the TPM detects foul play such as secure boot alteration, it will refuse to give the key or clear itself.
Using the TPM for constant encryption like at rest disk encryption would be way too slow.
It’s so so small that most modern TPMs have been integrated into the CPU or even simulated via the motherboard firmware (fTPM and PTT).
I’ll stick to Win10 until the end of the support period, just like how I stuck to Win7 as long as I could 😬 That was still my favourite OS, loved Aero 🥺
Yeah, agreed. I had to be pulled into 10 kicking and screaming. 7 was great. I got used to 10, but never loved it. And now I guess I’m done with Windows, which is kinda sad. I’ve been using it since Win95.
I’m still sticking to Windows mostly because of Adobe programs and gaming, so I guess I’ll just have to go the usual massgrave.dev route and group-policy all the crap out of Win11 😮💨
Yeah, that sucks. What a pain. I’m pretty lucky, almost all my games are on Steam and run great. And for my old stuff, I still have an XP machine. I don’t have any special software I need to run at home, either. I’ve got NX on my work laptop, and Windows is the company’s problem there. Good luck with 11, I hope it won’t be too much of a pain to debloat for you.
Not going to change unless Microsoft does a complete 180 on how they’re handling Win11 which I don’t think they will do because it’s just not in their corporate strategy at the moment. I imagine most people are just going to keep using Win10 after the support period ends.
Microsoft seriously needs an upper management shakeup. They have been dropping the ball badly in numerous areas and have their heads lodged too far up their own asses to see it.
That was my plan until MS installed copilot on my system without asking. A month later I installed Linux and haven’t looked back. I did dual boot just in case I needed it, but I actually haven’t had to boot into windows for the last 4 months. It’s gone so well I’m currently planning to do the same to my wife’s computer in a few months when I give it its hardware refresh.
I am 21 and have been a windows user since I was 6. Windows 10 was the last windows OS I ever used and after that used linux for a while and eventually switched to Mac, and I am glad I did. Windows 11 has a bunch of visual upgrades which just ruin the experience and makes it difficult to navigate around. Also the fact that I need to purchase a new laptop to be able to use it when my old one is perfectly fine.
Didn’t you need new laptop for MacOS as well?
I did, and about an year ago my laptop broke and my brother had been using a Macbook Pro from 2017, which still works just great, which hasn’t been the case for most windows laptops which are just as old in my experience.
I’ve been a lifetime Windows user, and the handful of times I had to use Mac was like pulling teeth. Every UI convention is slightly different, and I remember I found the file manager odd too.
The fact that any company is able to show you ads after you PAID for their shit is bonkers to me. Don’t get me started on repair and being able to unlock the bootloader on your device. No wonder education is very expensive and extremely hard to attain. They love the uneducated, so they can fuck them hard like that. Fuck all of them.
I literally left windows because of the incessant ads for 11. The last straw was them forcing copilot on my windows 10 install, but a lot of other things were bugging me way too much before I kicked the bucket. Thankfully I have the help of a friend that uses Linux daily and my boyfriend who just knows a fuckton about computers, but after finishing the initial setup I haven’t really had any issues
