Data shows the adoption of Windows improved last month

Aug 3, 2020 04:11 GMT  ·  By

While many still believe that Windows is the only desktop operating system that’s worth using, the adoption of Linux has improved substantially in the last few months.

And Linux grew so much that it finally became the Windows competitor that Microsoft never wanted, something that was impossible to see happening a few years ago.

Meanwhile, the ascension of Linux in the desktop market has taken a break, as the July 2020 data provided by NetMarketShare shows that the open-source world actually declined a little last month.

More specifically, Linux stepped back from a 3.61% market share in June to 3.57% a month later. This isn’t the end of the world, there’s no doubt about it, and the small decline is something that can totally be erased with bigger growth in August.

If this is something that can happen remains to be seen, but at the moment, it’s still very clear that many people continue to consider Linux a worthy alternative to Windows, and this can only be a good thing in the long term.

Small increase for Windows

As far as Windows itself is concerned, the market share data shows that it actually increased from 86.69% in June to 87.03% last month. The growth is mostly the result of Windows 10, Microsoft’s latest operating system version that’s now the recommended choice for everyone.

At this point, Microsoft only supports Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, but the latter is obviously the preferred version for both the company and its users. Windows 7, which continues to run on more than 20% of Windows devices out there, no longer receives updates since January this year.

However, Windows 7’s market share stagnated last month at a time when everybody should just upgrade, as running unsupported software leads to an increased risk of exploits based on vulnerabilities found in the OS.