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Cmd is one of the most frequently run executables on Windows with a similar number of daily launches as File Explorer, Edge and Internet Explorer!

I wonder why they included Edge. I have never seen anyone use it. Is it that popular? I don't think so and the numbers show.

Tyranny of the default

Cmd is one of the most frequently run executables on Windows with a similar number of daily launches as File Explorer, Edge and Internet Explorer!

I wonder why they included Edge. I have never seen anyone use it. Is it that popular? I don't think so and the numbers show.

Funny Netmarketshare is showing something different for me. Not that I like WIndows 10 as the best OS ever, but just saying

Let's just say this.

Windows 7 47.17%
Windows 10 23.72%
Windows XP 8.63%
Windows 8.1 8.01%
Linux 2.31%
Mac OS X 10.11 2.21%
Mac OS X 10.12 2.21%
Windows 8 1.96%
Mac OS X 10.10 1.35%
Windows Vista 1.10%
Mac OS X 10.9 0.47%
Windows NT 0.34%
Mac OS X 10.6 0.17%
Mac OS X 10.8 0.15%
Mac OS X 10.7 0.14%
Mac OS X 10.5 0.02%
Windows 2000 0.01%
Windows 98 0.01%
Mac OS X 10.4 0.00%
FreeBSD 0.00%
Macintosh 0.00%
Mac OS X) App 0.00%
Mac OS X (no version reported) 0.00%

You're delusional.
https://www.netmarketshare.com...

If this particular class is one in which literally any OS can be used, you'd expect in and around 3% of users to be on OSX. I think it might be a tad unreasonable to expect the instructor to know the ins and outs of getting a particular product running on OSX if less than one in 25 students is likely to be using it.

I was taking this as a rough guide.

Well, of course the MacBoook Pro "outsold" all other laptops this year... it's the only line of laptops with MacOS that was updated after an extremely long time, versus a huge number of options that are constantly being updated with Windows 7,8,10 or any flavor of Linux. It'll obviously outsell any other single brand as long as it keeps it's ecosystem enclosed into a walled garden giving anything from a single option to a handful for desperate users needing an upgrade.

Wanna get a new Windows 10 laptop? Well, here's a huge choice of options you have to fit whatever needs you have, coming out every single month, with all sorts of prices and specs, from a huge list of brands you can choose whichever is more reliable for you.

Wanna get a new MacBook? Well, I guess Apple could perhaps release a new revision to replace it's 4 year old Macbook Pro, I'm not sure how much better it'll be since the company has been giving a shit about professional customers anymore, with specs that could be kinda underpowered and outdated, but it's still guaranteed to be Apple priced. It`s your only option though, so you better kneel down and pray to our lord Jobs.

People who are invested, used to, like and/or have the money to be into the Apple ecosystem will buy a new MacBook Pro - if only for the hardware upgrade and because they have no other option. Not everyone hated the lack of ports, but even those who did just have no other option.

But hey smart guy, want some statistics? There:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.statista.com/stati...
http://www.w3schools.com/brows...
https://www.netmarketshare.com...

Nothing new under the sun. MacOS is still around the 10% mark which it has been keeping for around 2 to 3 years now, with different versions of Windows going somewhere between 60% to 80% when added up. There's the plain hard truth of this game: the whole OS preference has been pretty much fixed for quite a while now. And despite Microsoft making some very horrible decisions for Windows 10, I also don't see much incentive for people to go MacOS either.

No, it was 2% of worldwide desktop market share: http://www.netmarketshare.com/...

Regarding support & training costs, the only people who do that kind of cost analysis are businesses and they will also be using Outlook, Word, Excel & PowerPoint. Maybe it's as cheap or cheaper to retrain someone from Windows 7 -> Linux as it is from Windows 7 -> Windows 10, but the larger cost by far, probably by at least 1 order of magnitude, is retraining staff to use LibreOffice or whatever Office replacement you find, and you only incur that cost when you switch to Linux.

Maybe small, simple businesses might switch from Windows -> Mac - at least Office is available there, so all you have to do is teach folks how to launch them and how to navigate in Finder.

As for System76, well they may sell powerful laptops, but as well as being cheaper and faster, they are also heavier and uglier. Some folks might ditch a Mac for one, but it won't be many. They sit at a very different position in the looks / weight / power / price spectrums.

4.07% is took over? Mac has double the market share of Linux, but not hardly took over.

https://www.netmarketshare.com...

Name a modern schematic capture/PCB layout package that runs on OSX. OrCAD, PADS/PCB, or Altium (used by Apple) all run on Windows only. There are a few, tiny hobbyist programs, but nothing mainstream that paying customers would want.

Name a 3D parametric CAD package that runs on OSX. Solidworks, NX, Creo (used by Apple) all run on Windows only. There are a few, tiny hobbyist programs, but nothing mainstream that paying customers would want.

Oh, and OSX is about 6% of the total market. That's a strong 2nd place to the ~92% Windows market share! But at least it's ahead of Linux so you go that going for you...

Nice strawman you got there! The original premise was that Mac USERS used Macs because the USERS were non-technically-adept. When I provided some anecdotal evidence in the form of several long-time Mac-using friends of mine (plus myself) who most certainly belied that stereotype, you pivot the argument to whether the MAC (not the USERS) was "incompetent" (had no available software) to use with "electrical design" work. Nice try!

But to answer your "challenge" anyway, I will say this, regarding my own experience trying to do embedded hardware and software development on Apple equipment since 1980:

Of course it has always been a challenge to find tools for electronic hardware and software design on ALL non-Windows platforms. But unless you are doing really high-end stuff, it has always been possible. And now, even some of the high-end packages are starting to come around.

One of the brightest areas comes in the form of software toolchains for embedded development. Many major microcontroller OEMs, such as Microchip, ST, Atmel, and others have released full, and fully-supported, development toolchains (one of the first being Microchip, who achieved a major headstart by purchasing the makers of Hi-Tech C compilers, which already had Mac versions of their compilers). And the list grows every year. And some people even use an Eclipse-based toolchains and even XCode to do embedded development. So actually, the software dev. side is getting pretty good at this point.

The hardware design side isn't as rosy; but it too, is gradually getting better each year.

As far as schem. Capture, simulation, and PCB design, one of the most competent packages (with the world's worst website!) is a package I personally used back in 1984 on the original 128k "toaster Mac": VAMP Inc.'s McCAD. It offers full-blown and integrated capture, simulation, PCB layout and Auto-routing modules, all of which are quite "competent", and in no-way "hobbyist" level. The pricing alone will dispel any of those allusions! As I said, don't let the amateurish website fool you: This is the real deal. I have used both OrCAD (extensively) and Altium (yes, both on Windows), and I can tell you that McCAD is easily their equal. By the way, OrCAD (and Cadence itself) is one of the nastiest, buggiest, most uneven pieces of shit I have ever used, and ultimately drove my employer at the time to switch to Altium (which I feel is only superior when compared with the POS that is OrCAD). I have only played with PCAD/PADS in demo versions, so I can't speak to them.

The other solution is Eagle, which has offered an OS X-native (Cocoa) (rather than just an X11 port) version of its integrated design package for over a decade. Although it most definitely has its roots in the hobbyist world (and still offers limited hobbyist and educational editions), it has grown into a pretty nice package (with "pro-level" pricing to match!), with some wonderfully-unique features, such as a flexible scripting language that can be used for all sorts of typical and atypical things, a lot of which would be difficult, if not impossible, on any other design suite. So don't diss Eagle.

As far as CAD/CAM

Name a modern schematic capture/PCB layout package that runs on OSX. OrCAD, PADS/PCB, or Altium (used by Apple) all run on Windows only. There are a few, tiny hobbyist programs, but nothing mainstream that paying customers would want.

Name a 3D parametric CAD package that runs on OSX. Solidworks, NX, Creo (used by Apple) all run on Windows only. There are a few, tiny hobbyist programs, but nothing mainstream that paying customers would want.

Oh, and OSX is about 6% of the total market. That's a strong 2nd place to the ~92% Windows market share! But at least it's ahead of Linux so you go that going for you...

Which will impact less then 8% of the market: https://www.netmarketshare.com...

On PC the numbers are clear. Less than 3% for Linux so I was off by a little. If you start including mobile devices and other arm base devices such as routers, tv boxes and such you increase their share to well above 50%.

PC market share:
https://www.netmarketshare.com...

Google has fairly strong competition with Firefox on Android.

Say what? Firefox on Android has market share of half a percent. Shit, desktop Linux had a higher market share than that when Microsoft was prosecuted for monopoly practices. Browsers like Opera Mini have ten times the market share of Firefox on Android. It may as well not exist for all the presence it has.

Microsoft's Windows Phone OS dropped below 1 percent mark share

Actually Windows Phone OS has 23% market share, only it's running on desktops not phones.

There are many benefits to the open web as we know it. However, technology and usage always change and its' about adapting, not wishing people weren't using apps. Ideally almost all info would be on the open web. But the open web has drawbacks that cause people to prefer Apps - until this changes we will continue to see the traditional web decline. The open web needs to improve at the pace of apps or faster if it is to survive. How far has HTML and other related tech come since the release of HTML5 (started in 2008 - and wasn't a finalized spec until 2014) ... how far have phones and their apps improved since then? It feels like we are in the 90's, when each browser was so different that websites needed to be optimized for one browser or another - now we have apps that render web content in incompatible ways and hides the data to boot. Web browsers are better now, but things still don't render the same way in every browser... this should not be an issue still. The web was never designed for the modern things we are doing with information - yes web technologies have evolved, but its all built on a system that started only with text and hypertext. Everything else after that was tacked on (CSS and Javascript), and although we can do amazing things with today's web - apps were built from the ground up to handle multimedia and complex interactions in a more straightforward, elegant, and sophisticated way. Yes, there are many examples of building complex application like experiences like GDocs or web-based photoshop alternatives - https://pixlr.com/editor/ - but these are less appealing and capable than native apps. Flash used to cause the same problems for SEO and hiding info from the world - and it sucked for many reasons, didn't evolve much over the years, but it did more than the web could for years because it was built to do something the web couldn't' at the time - provide immersive experiences that were not limited by the confines of traditional web technologies. Lest we forget plugins existed because they filled the gap left by the web. There are many reasons why the web as we know it today is failing users http://arstechnica.com/informa... It sucks that Apps will hide data that ideally would be open - for uses today - and for posterity in the future. I will never argue the ideal that the open web should prevail. I'm not sure what the solution should or could even be - nor will I try to come up with one that will never come to fruition. The whole point of this post is to say that the average person does not care about these issues. They want slick, fast, engaging experiences that fit their needs - the open web isn't doing as well as Apps are at doing just that. If web standards evolved faster - we wouldn’t be talking about this. I love the open web and the benefits it provides for humanity. I have lost a lot of hope in the pure implementation many of you speak f though. Web browsers should be platforms upon which the world operates - and in many cases, they are just that - indeed, thats what Chrome OS was created for. As we speak Chromebooks are rolling out that now run Android apps natively. This is at odds with the original goals of the Chromebook concept. But think about this: Mobile devices usage has surpassed desktops a while ago: https://searchenginewatch.com/... Android is the most widely used mobile OS https://www.netmarketshare.com... and Android apps can now stream to your phone http://www.pocket-lint.com/new... Google is now able to search within apps

Wow, Microsoft must be paying a fuckton of money to AMD. Windows 7 is still 47% (down only about 5% from Q1 2016 and probably not moving any farther now that free upgrades are over). If my competitor stood up and said "we are walking away from half of the market" my response would be "We are committed to supporting the half of the market our competitor just abandoned."

Is AMD independently wealthy enough to also ignore half of the market, or is Microsoft making them wealthy enough to do so? Stockholders ought to be asking that question right now, especially given the weak position that AMD is in.

My guess is AMD isn't fighting because they want to stay on MS's good side and they know that this doesn't really matter much since very few people will actually buy a bleeding edge processor and not use the newest OS. It just doesn't happen that much in the real world. The vitriol that's spewed around here about how they're never upgrading to Windows 10 and how they're switching to or have been using Linux for years is just noise that in no way reflects most people. As normal people upgrade hardware they will upgrade Windows and they will absolutely never switch to Linux because it's not usable enough for normal people, not supported enough by the consumer software world and it's not offered, pushed or supported pretty much at all by any major distribution channels. It's sub 10% market share reflects this and the insistence by Linux advocates that it's fine as is ensures that it will NEVER be a successful desktop OS.

DISCLAIMER: My relaying of the realities of the world in no way condones what MS has been doing lately. They have gone bat shit insane and will need to be sued/regulated back into submission. But they won't go away and Windows won't be replaced as the dominate OS. At least not by Linux. ChromeOS has a shot if they can topple the Office choke hold, piggyback on Android's success and secure the school market to indoctrinate future workers.

Wow, Microsoft must be paying a fuckton of money to AMD. Windows 7 is still 47% (down only about 5% from Q1 2016 and probably not moving any farther now that free upgrades are over). If my competitor stood up and said "we are walking away from half of the market" my response would be "We are committed to supporting the half of the market our competitor just abandoned."

Is AMD independently wealthy enough to also ignore half of the market, or is Microsoft making them wealthy enough to do so? Stockholders ought to be asking that question right now, especially given the weak position that AMD is in.

Win 10 is no where near the top OS, it just beats XP by 6%...
https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0&qptimeframe=Y
But I agree this is a valid story and that not playing nice with a Kindle is a major screw up.

The reason why Linux will never make it to the mainstream desktop is because OS X is the best and easiest UNIX-based GUI to use. And things, "just work."

I take it you have never heard of the "Microsoft Tax"? Linux seems to be doing fine on most computing devices except the desktop.

Android (has a Linux kernel) has 86.2% compared to Apple's 12.9% of market as per Q2 2016 market share.. Also Android tablets account for 66.1% while IOS accounts for 27.87% of market share .

As for Super Computers, Linux dominates with about 99%.

Note: The figures I gave you are Q2 2016 so they are current.

This will produce a giant boost of Linux usage on the desktop.

In fact, it may even get to 3% marketshare across ALL Distros combined!

The best indicator for desktop market share might be usage statistics from web sites, despite some shortcomings due to faked user agents and such. Because they show actual usage instead of sales.

http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=9&qpcustomb=0 shows some recent growth of desktop market share for Linux, albeit still far below Windows. I'm starting to hope that it is not a fluke this time and the trend will continue ;-)

Since iPhones have a much larger market share than OSX devices your point is moot. But don't let that stop you from blabbing on about it. Or the fact that Apple has sold more iWatch products than all other smartwatches combined.

(a) iOS market share is around 30% c.f. 70% for Android - and these days, that Android figure includes a lot of high-end phones from Samsung et. al. Apple could probably double their target market by supporting Android. On what planet does that not make sense?

(b) Most of the competing smartwatches suffer the exact same drawbacks as the Apple Watch: high price, poor battery life, normally-off emissive display, too bulky/delicate/expensive for sport. The FitBit (not a full smartwatch - but nails the most compelling use case of smartwatches) outsells the Apple Watch by a factor of two.

Of course, the iPod, iPhone probably ended up selling more Macs... but they did that indirectly, by promoting the brand, despite being supported on PCs. If Apple think many Android users are going to by a Watch plus an iPhone to link to it - or even look at a Watch if it doesn't work with their phone - then they're holding it wrong.

66% of all mobile devices use the Linux kernel: https://www.netmarketshare.com...

Yes, Android is not GNU/Linux, but ChromeOS (which counts as "Linux" on the desktop as well), isn't really GNU/Linux either. Yes, it contains more GNU/Linux components than Android, but its too different from a real GNU/Linux OS to count one, especially because of its DRM and limited functionality to "HTML apps only".

Yeah, that billion dollars worth of patents has done a lot for them -- they've managed to grow their market share to OVER ONE TENTH of Google's, with only a four-year head start.

https://www.netmarketshare.com...

But hey, if you want to buy the secret recipe to a glistening 1998-style "portal", be my guest. A billion dollars is a small price to pay to get into a competitive position against Netscape/AOL!

Unless one of those patents is for a working time machine, the only value you'll get out of them will the the warm fuzzy feeling of helping Marissa buy her eight and ninth yachts when she quits/gets fired/closes the company later this year.

They're not the market leader anymore, they don't have the advantages of monopoly,

While i agree with your overall sentiment the above is not even close to true. Microsoft has a stranglehold on the PC market as it pertains to OS. https://www.netmarketshare.com... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Desktop Linux is getting to a point where it is viable for day to day work tasks, and gaming is becoming not just a wish, but actually something coming around (slowly but surely).

If it was coming around any slower, it would be going backwards.

Steam Hardware & Software Survey: April 2016

Windows All 95% Down 0.3%
Windows 10 64 Bit 38% Up 1.4%

OSX 3.6% Up 0.3%

Linux 0.9% No change
Ubuntu All 0.4%

The "Steam Machine?" Doesn't seem to catching on:

Alienware Steam Machine ASM100-2980BLK Desktop Console #3,546 in Computers & Accessories, #172 in Computers & Accessories > Desktops > Towers [7:10 PM ET May 21]

The Mac Mini is hot right now at Amazon ---- well, as hot as it gets for a desktop these days ---- and there appear to be some good values in entry-level Win 10 gaming systems.

Linux has about 2% of the desktop market, Windows 10, 15%. Desktop Operating System Market Share - April 2016 A desktop market in decline is not healthy for Linux, which has always been starved of OEM support. Microsoft plays well with Linux if you are managing a server.

But it is also doing spectacularly well on the desktop side selling things like MS Office as a service.

totally irrelevant

Desktop Linux is getting to a point where it is viable for day to day work tasks, and gaming is becoming not just a wish, but actually something coming around (slowly but surely).

If it was coming around any slower, it would be going backwards.

Steam Hardware & Software Survey: April 2016

Windows All 95% Down 0.3%
Windows 10 64 Bit 38% Up 1.4%

OSX 3.6% Up 0.3%

Linux 0.9% No change
Ubuntu All 0.4%

The "Steam Machine?" Doesn't seem to catching on:

Alienware Steam Machine ASM100-2980BLK Desktop Console #3,546 in Computers & Accessories, #172 in Computers & Accessories > Desktops > Towers [7:10 PM ET May 21]

The Mac Mini is hot right now at Amazon ---- well, as hot as it gets for a desktop these days ---- and there appear to be some good values in entry-level Win 10 gaming systems.

Linux has about 2% of the desktop market, Windows 10, 15%. Desktop Operating System Market Share - April 2016 A desktop market in decline is not healthy for Linux, which has always been starved of OEM support. Microsoft plays well with Linux if you are managing a server.

But it is also doing spectacularly well on the desktop side selling things like MS Office as a service.

How about they implement blocking autorun of all videos by default unless you whitelist a site.

I agree. Google automatically white-listing certain sites based on an arbitrary size of those sites seems highly illegal and like a conflict of interests.

I say illegal, because the Chrome browser has recently reached the threshold of the biggest marketshare of all browsers on the desktop (to say nothing of their marketshare of the Chrome browser on mobile devices like Android phones and tablets).

After all, if manual white listing is good enough for the other smaller video sites, why isn't it good enough for YouTube? And yes, I realize that Youtube supports HTML5, but I assume there is a reason they still want Youtube to work with Flash on Chrome (otherwise, they wouldn't have bothered with whitelisting their own site).

The bar chart clarifies things. Windows down a tick. OSX up a tick. Linux flat-lined as always. Desktop Top Operating System Share Trend

More revealing, perhaps, are the numbers from Statcounter, which show OSX doing very well in the North American market, at 17.5%. Top 7 Desktop OSs in North America from Apr 2015 to Mar 2016

Statcounter doesn't break out stats for Linux, which is perhaps just as well.

And why is Windows 3.11 seeing such an uptick in use?

Windows 7 doesn't access the Windows Store. The Windows 7 install base is HUGE. They want those people off Windows 7 and on an OS that has their store built in. Windows 7 runs on almost 60% of general user PCs, this number includes Macs. https://www.netmarketshare.com... That's a shit ton of potential people buying from your store. Let's face it, most people running W7 won't pay to upgrade, but their logic will be "hey if it's free, why not?!?". There you go, more money extracted from what would otherwise be a zero revenue generating install.

MS takes 30% of sales on their Windows store. MS wants everyone purchasing from their store so they get a 30% cut of every other company's programming work.

How I interpret MS's a long term goal - it's likely that they want to at some point force you go through the "Windows Store" to buy programs, just like Apple does on their "App Store". Hey,if you can't ignore the forced update that makes this change, then too bad for you. Here's how I see it as a general outline:
1. Develop New Windows OS that Data Mines (read new MS agreements @ https://edri.org/microsofts-ne... ), "cloud services", and more importantly includes the windows store and forced OS updates to add/remove features as they see fit. - Check

2. Offer "Free" windows upgrades - Check
3. Gain Installs / market penetration for new windows OS - In Progress
4. Sell / Use mined data for marketing purposes - Check (See above)
5. Leverage "cloud" services as a vendor lock in - Future
6. Sell more "windows services" - Future
7. Use forced Os updates to lock windows program installation down to their store just like Apple does on iOS - More Distant Future
8. Utilize a 90%+ PC device install base to profit massively off the "windows store" ( http://www.windowscentral.com/... ) - More Distant Future

MS can take a lesson from Amazon.

IE 6 on Windows XP is the second-most popular browser in the world, still. I say nuke that shit from orbit.

IE 6 is not the second most popular browser, not by a long shot.
https://www.netmarketshare.com...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

By PC do you mean Windows? or can we expect something more useful?

Linux --- all flavors --- represents 1.7% of the desktop market. Win 7, alone, 53%, Win 10. 12%. Desktop Operating System Market Share The PC gamer who has the hardware needed to run the latest AAA titles is almost certainly running Windows.

Win 10's share of the desktop is approaching 10x that of Linux, all flavors. Desktop Operating System Market Share - Operating System Versions.

Net Applications builds its stats by looking at hits to about 40,000 sites a month which appeal to a very large and diverse audience and not the geek elite --- and that implies that Microsoft understands the needs and values of the masses better than the geek. About our Methodology

Win 10's share of the desktop is approaching 10x that of Linux, all flavors. Desktop Operating System Market Share - Operating System Versions.

Net Applications builds its stats by looking at hits to about 40,000 sites a month which appeal to a very large and diverse audience and not the geek elite --- and that implies that Microsoft understands the needs and values of the masses better than the geek. About our Methodology

I was wondering the same thing. Tried it when first upgrading a couple of machines to Windows 10, ignored it ever since. From a quick search, Edge seems to be roughly in the 1.7-2.8% market share range (e.g. netmarketshare) this month, which actually seems seems high to me; since Windows 10 has 9% of the desktop OS market share for the same timeframe, that means fully a quarter of Windows 10 users are finding Edge good enough to stick with it. Then again, I guess for basic web browsing by non-technical users, it probably does the job; that segment of users probably wouldn't know about or use the features that Edge is missing even if it had them, so that's probably reasonable.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say with the share price.

We are at a site where a lot of posters for a lot of years have proclaimed that MS is close to start tanking/dying. The 5 year share price has doubled during the last 5 years of these doom and gloom predictions at a fairly stable pace if you look at average trend line.

Is that 100 million supposed to be impressive? Because at Microsoft's scale, it doesn't seem particularly impressive to me.

100 million users just 2 month after launch is impressive even by Microsoft scale, yes. It is much more than Windows 7 which reached 100 mill after 6 months.But hey, if Windows 7 was a disaster, then Windows 10 is at least a significantly less of a disaster.

For what sites?

The average of all, according to multiple large measurement companies. This is last month from one of them, where they are tied, you need subscription to see the latest where they have passed.

The network usage numbers back this up too. Every pro-Apple site seemed to crow over the NetMarketShare stats showing iOS having roughly twice the browser traffic of Android. The reality was that Android passed iOS web traffic in 2013. How can that be? NetMarketShare (Net Applications) tracks a relatively small sample of sites (about 40,000), and only counts individual visits in a month. So when they said iOS traffic exceeded Android traffic by nearly 2x, what they meant was there were 2x as many unique iOS visitors as unique Android visitors in a month. StatCounter tracks over 3 million sites and counts page hits - i.e. actual traffic volume. By their measurements Android passed iOS around 2013, and is currently at about 2.5x iOS traffic volume.

In other words, back when twice as many iOS users browsed the web than Android users, each browsing Android user generated more than 2x as much traffic as the typical iOS user. Combine this with the mobile device market share stats (roughly 80% Android) and the complete picture you get is: The vast majority of Android users never browse the web. iOS users occasionally browse the web (I wouldn't call them all kids, just light or occasional users). A small group of Android users - the "premium" users - browse the web heavily on their devices, much more heavily than iOS users.

Note: Net Applications finally showed Android passing iOS in mid-2014. So now not only does more web browsing come from Android, but more unique visitors as well. Of course you probably never heard about that happening because the press has a strong pro-Apple bias and rarely publishes anything which casts Apple in a bad light. Just like you never heard about the iPad losing tablet market share until it dropped below 50%, even though it was obvious for 2 years that was happening if you were tracking the quarterly statistics.

"Linux has very good backwards compatibility as peppepz pointed out"

You're making fun of me? Look, you are assuming several terribly wrong things:

The vast majority of linux software comes with sourcecode

Correct, but good luck trying to make it work. Things like Freetype2 are easy, now try to compile Firefox or LibreOffice (is a nightmare). And a tip: You are NOT the original developer of the thing (so if you do not have a really good documentation you will spend days trying to understand what's going wrong).

It's extremely rare that you would need to be using an old linux binary

Yeah, rigth. I have to develop and maintain a lot of things that do not have the privilege to keep changing libraries, especially libraries fucking unable to maintain compatibility between a smaller version and another.

You linux types keep forgetting the crucial detail that most of your users are NOT Linux developers or are not even developers, most of them DO NOT know how to build an application or can not waste time doing it, and those who try (like me) invariably run into some absurd compilation problem or dependency needs of those who can not understand the computer is not exclusive to his application.

And now you will suggest me to use a friendly distro for users, right? The problem is that this only works if the user limits itself to use only what exists in the repository, and only as long as the developer of the application that the user need maintains a professional attitude about compatibility. The moment you try to install something out of the repository like I did, and this thing is slightly more complex, you're screwed.

Backwards compatibility is a tiny niche for linux, hardly anyone ever uses it.

It is because of this that Linux is a niche system.

It looks like the current marketshare is under 12% and in a decline.

Is it any wonder, with bone headed moves like completely blocking support for some plugins (ahem, flash)? I moved off the nightly builds onto waterfox for this very reason. I'll be the one in charge of deciding which plugins I do/don't run thank you very much.

It looks like the current marketshare is under 12% and in a decline.

I disagree. Currently, Linux desktop share (in reality, not just looking at sales numbers which of course is idiotic since most people install Linux themselves rather than buying a PC with it pre-installed) is tiny, and has very little visibility. It's hard to say exactly how small it is, but it's not likely to be have more users than MacOSX.

If NetMarketShare is to be believed, and if measuring based on Web access is good enough, Linux has about a 1.74% share and OS X has about 7.72%.

Anyway, as a consequence the availability of applications is rather poor, which prevents more people, who would like to switch, from adopting it because they rely on certain proprietary apps (usually business-related).

It'd be nice to have better marketshare, maybe around 25%, because then there'd be much better support.

Well, just 7.72% might get you the level of support OS X has (which, from a desktop point of view, includes Microsoft Office and Quicken, for example), although Linux might need a bit more to encourage developers to add it as a platform. My pure worth-every-cent-you-paid-for-it guess would be that something in the range of 10-to-15% would be sufficient, but 25% would definitely make people take notice. (And don't count the money you paid for your computer, its OS, its browser, and its Internet connection when measuring my guess's worth. :-))

Also, mainstream adoption wouldn't kill it; why do you think that? The big strength of Linux is its open-source nature and lack of centralized control. Even if, say, Ubuntu became the new Microsoft and all Windows users suddenly installed Ubuntu (not likely, but let's suppose), most of the software is open-source: the kernel, main libraries, etc. All those other distros will still be around, and doing things differently than Ubuntu: different DEs, maybe even different init systems, etc. You'll still be able to use a distro that suits you better.

Although without some level of binary compatibility between distributions, the other distributions might not get to run the proprietary apps in question. (Some might consider the lack of proprietary apps a feature, but, well, if you have a lack of centralized control, you may end up with distributions that do run a number of proprietary apps; the "no centralized control" knife cuts both ways, it doesn't necessarily favor free software fans in all cases. Pick your distribution based on, among other things, whether you want the proprietary apps or reject proprietary apps.)

There are over a billion computers in use (as of 2008... probably more now.) OS X 10.10 (10.11 is literally only days old, so...) seems to be on 4.91% of the OS X machines out there based on browsing stats and this thing.

That's 49.1 million machines, if I didn't slip a decimal place somewhere.

Not too bad. :)

Will investing hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting an OS with 1.6% of market share ever return a profit?

Mobile browser statistics suggest otherwise, but OK let's join you in fantasy land where "iOS just isn't relevant" to the web.

How about Adobe? Is Adobe relevant to Flash? Because it was Adobe who pulled the plug on Flash mobile in 2011. Flash on mobile is a bloated battery-draining joke. Apple merely recognized that fact first.

And if you're suggesting that mobile web is less relevant than desktop web, you've gone full retard.

The decline HAS happened, and is still happening (are you saying a decline from ~14% to ~11% in a single year is "insignificant"??). Flash was everywhere 8 years ago. People built fucking site navigation out of Flash, if not entire websites. Those days are long gone, Flash is relegated to specific niche cases now, and continues to dwindle. The mobile-ization of web access (on all platforms) is absolutely the death knell of Flash, albeit one with a very long tail.

Dear Coward,

Have you allowed for the vast changes in the market i.e desktop no longer is the majority platform type?

What the fuck are you talking about? The stats linked to in that earlier comment clearly show that the desktop is the "majority platform type"!

Which I've already demonstrated is bullshit. You've managed to find the only source of stats that support your view... (how lucky is that?). How's that big lie working out for you?

And the flaws in the reporting i.e. Firefox is counted as Firefox, but Iceweasel, PaleMoon, and a myriad of other builds of Firefox aren't.

Did you actually look at the stats page? Look at the very bottom, where it says

Pale Moon 25.5 0.006%

Do you even look at what you're quoting? I've bolded it for you in case your lips got sore and it's stopped you reading it. Cherry pick much? Where did I say PaleMoon was not counted? I clearly said it was counted as not Firefox

I looked at and responded to all your "points". You, on the other hand ignored the ones I made. How convenient.

Mobile platform browser figure sources aren't given, Desktop platform figures come from StatCounter - I don't know who the fuck they are - and no one I know does either

Netmarketshare says 12.06% , a 3% drop since August last year. Probably a more reliable figure for the broad range of web servers, and similar to other figures from the largest websites.

Wikipedia - from reputable sources which are listed

As of February 2015, Firefox has between 12% and 20% of worldwide usage as a "desktop" browser, making it, per different sources, the third most popular web browser

Note the "reference" you quote, that I provide evidence to show is distorted, claims to use StatCounter as it's source, and "various" other unnamed sources (you probably missed that, ironically. It's "at the very bottom" of your "source").
Then somehow manages to come up with market share figures that don't even agree with the source they do quote (17.87%) using stats from, wait for it -StatCounter .

A long way from the 8% you claim. Smells like bullshit, looks like bullshit, and it fell out the backend of a bull. So yeah - your claims from which you extrapolate imminent demise are bullshit.
If you weren't trying so hard you'd know that Firefox market share peaked back in 2009 when it lost it's new factor with the Eternal September mob. You're a latecomer to the end of the world predicting club.

Iceweasel isn't even listed because, guess what, NOBODY USES IT!

Oh right - Debian is part of the Mozilla marketing grand conspiracy is it? And denial is a river in Egypt.

But really, none of those are Firefox. Firefox is Firefox. Iceweasel is kind of Firefox, but it's not Firefox. Pale Moon is not Firefox.

Bullshit. The only differences with Iceweasel is the name and longer support for security patching. PaleMoon is a fork only by technicality (it's interface contain a few hundred lines of different code, and config defaults are "optimised").

Face it, Firefox is dying off. It's losing users left and right. It's marching full speed into its own grave!

Sounds like it's a football fan thing....
You

Dear Coward,

Have you allowed for the vast changes in the market i.e desktop no longer is the majority platform type?

What the fuck are you talking about? The stats linked to in that earlier comment clearly show that the desktop is the "majority platform type"!

Which I've already demonstrated is bullshit. You've managed to find the only source of stats that support your view... (how lucky is that?). How's that big lie working out for you?

And the flaws in the reporting i.e. Firefox is counted as Firefox, but Iceweasel, PaleMoon, and a myriad of other builds of Firefox aren't.

Did you actually look at the stats page? Look at the very bottom, where it says

Pale Moon 25.5 0.006%

Do you even look at what you're quoting? I've bolded it for you in case your lips got sore and it's stopped you reading it. Cherry pick much? Where did I say PaleMoon was not counted? I clearly said it was counted as not Firefox

I looked at and responded to all your "points". You, on the other hand ignored the ones I made. How convenient.

Mobile platform browser figure sources aren't given, Desktop platform figures come from StatCounter - I don't know who the fuck they are - and no one I know does either

Netmarketshare says 12.06% , a 3% drop since August last year. Probably a more reliable figure for the broad range of web servers, and similar to other figures from the largest websites.

Wikipedia - from reputable sources which are listed

As of February 2015, Firefox has between 12% and 20% of worldwide usage as a "desktop" browser, making it, per different sources, the third most popular web browser

Note the "reference" you quote, that I provide evidence to show is distorted, claims to use StatCounter as it's source, and "various" other unnamed sources (you probably missed that, ironically. It's "at the very bottom" of your "source").
Then somehow manages to come up with market share figures that don't even agree with the source they do quote (17.87%) using stats from, wait for it -StatCounter .

A long way from the 8% you claim. Smells like bullshit, looks like bullshit, and it fell out the backend of a bull. So yeah - your claims from which you extrapolate imminent demise are bullshit.
If you weren't trying so hard you'd know that Firefox market share peaked back in 2009 when it lost it's new factor with the Eternal September mob. You're a latecomer to the end of the world predicting club.

Iceweasel isn't even listed because, guess what, NOBODY USES IT!

Oh right - Debian is part of the Mozilla marketing grand conspiracy is it? And denial is a river in Egypt.

But really, none of those are Firefox. Firefox is Firefox. Iceweasel is kind of Firefox, but it's not Firefox. Pale Moon is not Firefox.

Bullshit. The only differences with Iceweasel is the name and longer support for security patching. PaleMoon is a fork only by technicality (it's interface contain a few hundred lines of different code, and config defaults are "optimised").

Face it, Firefox is dying off. It's losing users left and right. It's marching full speed into its own grave!

Sounds like it's a football fan thing....
You

I just don't get Mozilla. Firefox's share of the market has dropped so much. Recent browser market share stats show that all versions of Firefox Desktop are only around 8% of the market.

Have you allowed for the vast changes in the market i.e desktop no longer is the majority platform type? And the flaws in the reporting i.e. Firefox is counted as Firefox, but Iceweasel, PaleMoon, and a myriad of other builds of Firefox aren't.

Notes:- PaleMoon is listed as a type that is not listed - but others variants aren't even acknowledged. Mobile platform browser figure sources aren't given, Desktop platform figures come from StatCounter - I don't know who the fuck they are - and no one I know does either. Perhaps that makes their "figures" even more irrelevant than those from Alexis (every admin I know refuses to use Alexis). So I don't know that those figures are particularly meaningful - at least to me. Disclaimer: I go by awstats reports from sites I manage.

Netmarketshare says 12.06%, a 3% drop since August last year. Probably a more reliable figure for the broad range of web servers, and similar to other figures from the largest websites.

Apropos of the story - I've already disabled Pocket as it's of no interest to me.

I just don't get Mozilla. Firefox's share of the market has dropped so much. Recent browser market share stats show that all versions of Firefox Desktop are only around 8% of the market.

Have you allowed for the vast changes in the market i.e desktop no longer is the majority platform type? And the flaws in the reporting i.e. Firefox is counted as Firefox, but Iceweasel, PaleMoon, and a myriad of other builds of Firefox aren't.

Notes:- PaleMoon is listed as a type that is not listed - but others variants aren't even acknowledged. Mobile platform browser figure sources aren't given, Desktop platform figures come from StatCounter - I don't know who the fuck they are - and no one I know does either. Perhaps that makes their "figures" even more irrelevant than those from Alexis (every admin I know refuses to use Alexis). So I don't know that those figures are particularly meaningful - at least to me. Disclaimer: I go by awstats reports from sites I manage.

Netmarketshare says 12.06%, a 3% drop since August last year. Probably a more reliable figure for the broad range of web servers, and similar to other figures from the largest websites.

Apropos of the story - I've already disabled Pocket as it's of no interest to me.