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Linux didn't just eat 10% of Windows market share, AI bots are inflating the numbers
(www.windowslatest.com)
Source: windowslatest π§
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026
33 points (70.4% liked)
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Ironically, I'm not sure it matters.
people running bots are still a large section of an OS's market share. Microsoft wouldn't hesitate to include bots and such like because it inflates the appearance that "everyone just uses it". which does in fact drive up usage.
People running bots are still people using computers and such.
Kinda assumed that. Who really thinks Linux usage DOUBLED worldwide in a month?
There are a lot of Linux fanboys (especially on Lemmy) that are huffing some serious copium and think itβs a sign that Linux is taking over the desktop landscape at an alarming rate.
The spike was too much of an abnormality to come across as organic.
I misread "fanboys" as "femboys" and I was so confused lol
I mean thereβs a non-zero overlap in this case.
True :3
Wonder if Europe's "digital sovereignty" is having an impact.
I've seen a significant increase in the numbers of "I've finally switched!" posts to Linux groups. No clue how much that moves the needle though.
The numbers already accounted for bots.
Classic bots (e.g. standard web crawlers, as used by search engines, that report their both nature inside their user agent) or the modern LLM-controlled bots that control a full modern browser that also runs javascript?
Because I can imagine they account for the first category, while missing the latter, which have become increasingly more prominent.
The kind that wants to not appear as a bot is unlikely to send a Linux user agent even if running on Linux.
It doesn't have to be on purpose. Web crawlers like Google's specifically identify themselves as a bot. A headless browser just acts like any normal browser, and uses the same user agent as one, just controlled by code rather than a keyboard and mouse.