this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2026
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Linux

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Windows just had its worst month on record. StatCounter’s newly published numbers for June 2026 put worldwide desktop market share for Windows at 56.61%, the first time it has ever fallen below 60% in the history of the dataset. Linux closed the same month at 4.36%, its highest number in a year. The r/linux crowd found the chart within hours, and the thread that followed was half celebration, half cross examination.

Here’s what the data actually says, what it probably doesn’t say, and why the comments didn’t believe it for a second.

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[–] shingalated@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Why is OS X having such an increase and macOS stagnant? The last OS X release was 10 years ago. That must be getting miscategorized. (Unless everyone is moving back to Snow Leopard).

[–] Anafabula@discuss.tchncs.de 43 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Copying my comment from another thread

Idk why everyone is always looking at statcounter. I still feel like Cloudflare probably has better data.

Desktop OS usage graph from Cloudflare Radar. Last data point: Windows 74%, MacOS 20%, Linux 5.2%

[–] jacksilver@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago

Especially cause it feels like their "other" category is probably scrappers and bots.

[–] morto@piefed.social 7 points 2 weeks ago

Liek said, all data is biased, and that's why we sould rely on multiple sources. The absolute values are really hard to get a precise mapping of, but the trends seem to be consistent. There's a recent dip in windows usage in that chart as well

[–] BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 weeks ago

They're both likely biased in different ways, different goals to a point. It sounds like statcounter is making some effort to verify unique devices for determining numbers potentially, but Cloudflare looks like it's just raw requests which is going to bias you towards the noisiest devices. Still useful but I feel like that's a harder sell if you're trying to determine market share specifically. I'm not sure how you'd improve either one without drastically raising your overhead.

[–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

You see that “unknown” one? Yeah, that’s all Linux. A lot of Linux users hide their identities real well online

[–] buckfiftyseven@mastodon.social 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

@ekZepp I'm glad to see the growth of non-windows operating systems, but I kind of wonder about a chart or the second highest category is unknown?

Why unknown?

[–] schwim@piefed.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago

perhaps something like AI scrapers not properly reporting their UA? It would make sense to me that it's a strong second place.