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Windows 10 Gains 14% Desktop Market Share in 2016, Edge Continues to Struggle (petri.com)
From a report by long time Microsoft watcher Brad Sams on Petri.com: With 2016 now behind us, we can take a look at how far Windows 10 has come thanks to usage-share with statistics from Net Marketshare. At the end of December for 2016, Windows 10 is installed on roughly 24.5% of devices whereas, at the end of 2015, the OS was only installed on around 10% of machines. During the same period, Windows 7 declined from 55.68% to 48.34%, Windows 8.1 usage dropped from 10.3% to 6.9% and XP dropped slightly from 11% to about 9%. Also, released alongside Windows 10, is the company's new browser, Edge. While the market share of the desktop OS has grown steadily, Edge has not performed as well. At the end of 2015, Edge obtained a market share of 2.79% and at the end of 2016, it has climbed to 5.33%. But, Chrome, which had a market share of 32.33% at the end of 2015 now commands 56.43% of the market. During the same period, Internet Explorer dropped from 46.32% in 2015 to 20.84% in 2016.
It's still a turd of an operating system.
The only reason they can show higher adoption numbers is because they FORCED it on people.
I've just moved to Windows 10 for work and and Edge just doesn't run on my machine. It opens and then closes straight away. Googling the problem has shown it appears to be affecting a reasonable number of users. I can't be bothered to spend more than an hour trying to fix it.
.
Surely this cannot be seen as a success, even by the rose-coloured glasses that Microsoft PR usually looks through.
It is a colossal failure.
he who lives by the Enterprise Management tool dies by the Enterprise Management tool. More and more I have to put users on Chrome because the numbskulls who manage their domain profiles have cranked IE's security settings so high nothing works. And there are so many esoteric settings buried in the registry good luck finding the one causing your JavaScript to go haywire. But they let 'em install Chrome. So I get to have this conversation a lot:
Me: Does it work in Chrome?
Them: Yes.
Me: Wanna spend 8-16 hours of your life figuring out which of the 800+ settings it could be that's breaking IE?
Them: No.
Me: Use Chrome.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
When I launch a browser I want to start using it immediately, not after it has pestered me about some bullshiat I care nothing about. It is insanely frustrating to have Edge ignore the fact that I am typing a URL and have it take me off to some recommended shiat page telling me how much better Edge is than its competition. Quit trying to sell me on your walled garden web experience and stay out of my way, you imbeciles. Your UI includes a Stop button for a reason. The fact that it doesn't work when you are cramming your shit in my face only serves to piss me off.
Because they want to use it to break the standards?
I want to believe MS has competent design managers working for them. Maybe they are being micromanaged to the point of irrelevance, but I want to believe that after 20 years of trying to make a decent web browser they'd achieve success...or lacking that, they'd fail because some idiot manager keeps fucking them up.
Because damn...I'm embarrassed FOR them. How do you not put out at least a baseline capable browser by this point? Multi-billion dollar company who's spent 20+ years in the market, and they still fuck it up.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
It does sound like the kind of browser that a sonic OC artist would use.
Edge has extensions now, one of which is adblocking. Well, maybe more than one. But I didn't see a need to install more than one.
I use Vivaldi on my desktop, but I use Edge on my Windows tablet, because it comes closest to having a good touch UI of all the browsers.
Chrome and Firefox removed their touch UIs. Irksome.
It's just an incredibly stupid and embarrassingly dated name to use. Microsoft is always about 10 years late on everything and when they try to be "hip", they just expose what huge dorks and losers they are.
So what name for a browser do you think they would be allowed to use? Of all the dumb and annoying things that Microsoft has done, choosing the name Edge is not one of them. I think that this is a case of wanting to find fault in absolutely everything that Microsoft does whether they deserve it or not.
My Xmas present to my parents - remove that piece of shit MS Windows 10 off their laptop and restore MS Windows 7 on it.
The utterly braindead MS Windows 10 installer decided to run itself on an i3 machine with 2GB of memory. That made the machine totally unusable despite Firefox and Skype being the only programs used.
Changing it to MS Win7 gave it a usable interface that doesn't change or put ads in your face. Putting in 8GB of memory did the rest.
A better statistic would be to combine IE and Edge usage.
In 12 months you see it drop from over 50% to 26%.
Of course Edge is struggling, its not yet got a good plugin system, and by extension no decent ad blocker yet.
Actually, it does have extensions, albeit just a tiny selection (although it does include Adblock Plus). That said, even going to a page without ads I still find Edge to be an appallingly slow browser. I just can't stand to use it. It is slow to load, slow to open even simply web pages, and it lacks basic features that every single desktop browser has like F11 to enter full screen mode. (Didn't that start on Internet Explorer?)
If I ever have to open something in a browser that isn't one of the other three that I have loaded, I always choose Internet Explorer rather than Edge. I'll give them credit for trying to shake off the problems that IE had, but I consider Edge to be version 0.1 and not yet ready for real use.
What I'd like to know is what percentage of the machines running Windows 10 were stealth upgrades, and how many of those weren't reverted because the users either didn't know that they could go back to their old system or were afraid to try.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
praising ubuntu and all its back door bullshit shovling all your searches direct to amazon
Since 16.04 LTS, switched off by default. Please try and keep up.
We have a fucking music artist called "The Weekend" and another called "Lady Gaga." Edge seems to be in time since fucking stupid is up to date.
But is Edge optional, or the default choice? If it is the default choice, how sure are you that people who use Edge have chosen to use Edge? And how sure are you that they just didn't take what was on the system because they don't know how to install another browser or simply don't care to install another browser?
Downgrading to Windows 7 was the best thing I have done to my desktop.
Windows 10, even a year after its original release, had signs of being a beta product at best. One problem I have been struggling with was the machine's CPU eventually constantly at 30-40% use with no obvious causes. I have tried all of the half-baked canned answers from Microsoft, including disabling/enabling/changing AV, disabling Microsoft services, and even wiping out and reinstalling the OS.
The next issue is with the updater. This damned thing simply eventually stops working. It shows there are pending updates, starts the downloads, but then sits at 0%. I have tried every canned answer provided on the Microsoft forums, including resetting the update components and wiping and reinstalling the OS.
And finally, I am not fine at all with an OS that decides to reboot the machine whenever it likes. It's downright dangerous to leave any work open. I have been caught off guard by reboots a few times.
Edge needs to fix its bookmark toolbar. You can't arrange your bookmarks by dragging and dropping them. And the limitations on bookmark text because they still are NTFS file system files needs to die. NTFS filesystem character limitations need to die.
Pretty names for applications are silly anyhow, and have always been.
Just give them as name /what they actually are/. "Browser", or perhaps "MS browser".
At the very least, build up your application list or start menu or whatever with logical names like, perhaps allowing to append meaningless pretty names: "MS browser (Edge)".
I have so many applications installed, many of which I use only seldom, that I sometimes need to actually start them, or Ixquick them to find out /what they are/. :/
It would also greatly help new, or inexperienced, or old computer users.
and had declined for 4 years. Everything points towards continued decline for Windows sales for 2016. So 2016 will probably be fifth year with declining sales for Windows.
As for Windows - they stopped selling Windows 7 and 8 in 2016 so well of course Windows 10 will continue to increase. Customer can't get anything else in the future.
Android had 54% in 2015. So looks like mobile is the way to go.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Just saying it like it are.
Great question. Edge, as well as IE 11, is installed by default. It's another thing whether people actually use it or not. When I use my Windows laptop, I use variably either Chrome or Pale Moon. I only use Edge to log into Microsoft services
As for Windows - they stopped selling Windows 7 and 8 in 2016 so well of course Windows 10 will continue to increase. Customer can't get anything else in the future.
GNU/Linux is still available for desktop PCs, as is macOS for PCs made by Apple.
Android had 54% in 2015. So looks like mobile is the way to go.
Say I want to retire a luddite PC and use apps to app apps. How practical is it to use AIDE or another tool on an Android tablet for developing Android apps?
back door bullshit shovling all your searches direct to amazon
I solved that in December 2011: sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop
Then five years later when it came time for a clean reinstall for various reasons, I went with Xubuntu 16.04 LTS.
Assuming that you are the same AC that posted before, you are the only one who thinks that a name has to be cool or hip. I certainly never said that Edge was a cool name.
Edge is just a name. Just like Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, Safari, K-Meleon, Mosaic, Lynx, Epiphany, SeaMonkey, Konqueror and all the fifty million other browsers out there. Netscape Navigator is probably the only one (other than Internet Explorer) that tries to describe what it does in the name. But that's another old name that is no longer in use, so if you think that a name needs to be descriptive then it appears that it is you who is out-of-touch. It has been decades since people thought that those sorts of names were "cool".
I was under the impression that the name "Edge" came from <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge"> used to disable legacy document mode in Internet Explorer.
The high use of Chrome was triggered by issues with Firefox (which I think have been well managed by now).
I consider Firefox's issues managed as of Firefox 51, which brings the first round of Electrolysis to most users so that scrolling and tab switching aren't quite as affected by inefficient ad serving scripts.
(Unlike Firefox 50, which uses a whitelist of e10s-compatible extensions, Firefox 51 uses a blacklist of incompatible extensions. The "Ubuntu Firefox Modifications" extension that ships with the Xubuntu operating system is on neither list. So to get e10s, I have to join the beta channel by enabling the firefox-next PPA.)
Open Group Policy Editor (Press Windows Key and type gpedit.msc and hit Enter.
Last time I tried gpedit.msc on a home edition of Windows, I got an error message to the effect "not found". So it appears users who want to access files with long names would have to either pay to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro or pirate the Group Policy Editor snap-in. What am I missing?
Now that people have their OS with games and hardware for DirectX 12 support?
As for browsers, support for blocking all ads and related malware is a trending feature.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
"The Edge: The beer, beer-drinkers drink when they're not drunk."
I only use Edge to log into Microsoft services
You're lucky. Half the Microsoft services I log into won't render properly on Edge. They may have been fixed recently, but I've already moved on to browsers that work.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
The strong arm and bully people, and they have yet to reach a 25% penetration, less than 6% with their browser, which is the default that the illiterate masses won't be able, or won't care, to change. Well done, Microsoft; living up to expectations. Consider yourself, once again, middle fingered.
Ah I see, so it isn't the shitty substandard browsers that Microsoft distributes with their newest OS, somehow it's users' faults.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The time of Microsoft is gone for good. At least for me. I use Macs at work, Linux at home and PlayStation for gaming. The right system/device for the right task.
- OSX is a really nice piece of software when you get used to it.
- I am yet to find a thing that can't be done on Linux. Sure, some tasks are non-trivial but everything is possible if you have the knowledge.
- PlayStation because I've already completed all the old PC games I desired since childhood and I just want to have fun out-of-the-box now.
Speaking about Edge and IE, I am a back end Django developer for a big international company. Having made extensive research of the market and discussed the case with pretty much every dev at the company, we stopped giving a crap about Edge and IE mid 2016. Firstly, because of the low market share. Secondly, because to us Edge and IE are both like a POS at the end of a stick and the ordeal you have to go through to make things work is simply not worth the candle.
And when someone wakes up to find Windows 10 installed over their Windows 7/8/8.1 setup, doesn't that mean that their previous Firefox/Chrome default has now been changed...against their will? So most of this market share "gain" is really an attack, disruption or theft.
I come here for the love
Letting programmers name a software product makes as much sense as letting marketers write it.
the real world doesn't work on PHP and MYSQL, just a bunch of junky ass troll sites
Is Wikipedia such a "junky ass troll site"?
Using longer paths may cause buffer overflows in programs not written to expect longer paths.
Edge has a grand total of 21 extensions in the windows store last I checked a few weeks ago.
Microsoft likes to name things that are impossible to search for because they are common words.
Microsoft was trying for hip, gritty and edgy, but "Edge" is just cheesy and anachronistic.
You have also never proven that Microsoft was actually attempting to be hip, gritty and edgy. You just keep asserting the claim over and over again. So what does Edge mean? Microsoft VP Joe Belfiore said during his Build 2015 keynote:
So there you go. That wanted to move away from IE's reputation of not supporting modern standards so they chose a name to suggest being more cutting edge. You have decided that they meant for this to be part of some fashion trend, but that is all in your head. "Edge" doesn't mean edgy in a trendy sense, but cutting edge in a software development sense.
BTW, nice strawman, but I never said a thing in support of or against other browser names. I only said that Internet Explorer is a better name than Edge
If you think that I was accusing you of saying anything about the other browser names then you have reading comprehension problems. I said that the name Edge is no better or worse than all those other names. None of them are descriptive or professional like you want Microsoft's browser name to be. Nobody is ever going to say that Edge doesn't sound professional enough so that they will use Firefox instead.
You never did answer my question about what name they should use instead of Edge. They have tried to distance themselves from the Internet Explorer product, so they can't just reuse that name.
I never said that browsers had to have descriptive names. Maybe you should learn how to read before posting again.
Really? Let's see what you said before:
Maybe you should just stop lying and fixating on what is a perfectly unremarkable name for a browser.
When it comes to turd OS adoption announcements they really don't mean much either.
You could say for example that the number of people that couldn't take it anymore and slit their wrists is up 14% this year over last.
Or perhaps the number of people that jumped in front of the train after Windows 10 self installs and then crashes your HDD and deletes all digital memories of their poor deceased mother is on the rise.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
From the figures linked to by the original article, FF went from 11.68% in Jan 2015 to 12.22% in Dec. Hardly users "fleeing" - not what it was, but still comfortably twice anything but IE or Chrome.
Maybe if you're going to do things that belong on a server you should run a server operating system rather than desktop? Like Windows Server or, better yet, Linux?
Win2k and Windows XP were Microsoft's answer to that, giving people a server operating system based on NT instead of a relative toy like Win98/ME. MS Windows 10 has gone back to the approach of a toy that just happens to be built on what used to be a server operating system.
Whenever I here of W10 market share improvements, especially with people who rave about it. I just think, go ahead sheeple and get pwned by Microsoft, so long as *I* keep being able to use alternatives.. don't care if they get 95% market share with it.
Parent said Win32, not 32 bit. Win32 is another name for the Windows API and doesn't imply any specific bitness any more.
In my (unasked) opinion, Windows 10 is better than Windows 8.1. Most things are!
I think people have to take other browsers apart from Edge into account too. Take Chrome, which hasn't been mentioned at all in the summary, that browser is plugged again and again on Google services to the point you feel obligated to install it. I do usually have multiple browsers installed anyway in case of a problem which would affect my browser. I personally have gone back to Firefox as I just prefer it over other options, my PC is fast enough to render at a speed that I don't notice the difference between browsers. Edge only comes up if I start an 'app' from the start menu and it is quickly discarded back where it came from once the job is done.
I haven't understood the push for Edge, even with the previews I've been on for a couple years. It's far behind Chrome or Firefox in terms of features and it stinks to even try to use. I'm not patient enough to wait for their Agile-built app to go through enough sprints to become good. It's seems to me like when you are dropping your new app into an already fairly crowded space, the minimal marketable product must at least provide a damn-near level set of features to what is there.
If my "choice" is between competing broken products, then what choice do I have? So, the real choice becomes whether to continue choosing broken products or to choose to use something stable that does what I need it to. I made that choice.
You have a cookie cutter knee jerk response to criticism. You also don't have the nads to own up to your own comments, anonymous coward. If you examined the situation objectively, you'd realize a few things:
1. Linux Mint, Manjaro, Zorin, etc. are not different desktop OSs. They are different distributions of the same OS, Linux. Linux is not a desktop OS, but distributions can be geared towards the desktop.
2. All of these distributions share the same buggy software pool. So, no matter which distribution you "choose", your choices in software are limited to the same programs, with the same failings, that you have in every other distro. Sure,some patches are almost always included, but I have yet to find any that concentrate on the type of bug fixes to that software pool that would be needed in order to achieve the quality to make them usable to the vast majority.
3. As far as watching movies, I do so on Netflix and Amazon Prime....something that a google search tells me you're just now getting the ability to do again on linux...because they're finally caving in and working with the DRM. No more having to try workarounds (which incidentally didn't work for me last time I tried...right before Windows 10 came out). So, you only had to wait a few years to watch movies... or you switched to an OS that COULD watch movies.
But it's always something with Linux....some things you have to give up in order to use Linux. Instead of having an OS that fulfills your needs, you tailor your expectations by what Linux can do. Yes, you can choose to do less than everyone else... choose to have more bugs.. or you can choose an OS that actually fulfills YOUR needs.
I have a Windows 10 box. Every couple of days it displays an advertisement claiming Edge is some percentage faster or more secure than Firefox. I wonder what other programs it does this too? If I run OpenOffice will it display an ad for Microsoft Office? If I run bash will it advertise powershell?
Yet the number of people who didnt know they were upgraded to Win10 until after it ran for the first time indicates that your awareness is at least unreliable.
The complaint isn't that money was stolen,but marketshare, so "wallet" is irrelevant in rebuttal of THAT claim.
Your idea is like trying to "defend" your bullying by saying that since nobody else saw who hit who first, you aren't the bully.
Ever seen what Joe Belfiore looks like? He's a middle aged man who still thinks he's a teenager in the 90s.
How utterly irrelevant! Once again you are just looking for excuses to hate.
HAHAHAHA! "Cutting edge"? Really? And you don't think that sounds incredibly stupid and cheesy?
No, I don't. Obviously you do, but then you are an idiot.
I said that the name Edge is no better or worse than all those other names. None of them are descriptive or professional like you want Microsoft's browser name to be.
Then why bring them up? They weren't the topic of discussion, nor was their descriptiveness.
I don't know how many different ways I can explain this for you. Your entire complaint is about the name of the browser, and yet you refuse to acknowledge that it is no different than any of its competition. You said that it was a "dated name to use", which means you are comparing the name to the names being used today. If the other browser names are off-topic to this discussion, then exactly how can the name Edge be outdated?
Really? Let's see what you said before
I'm waiting....where did I say that?
Oh my god! I linked to the post and then copied the text to quote from it. I see you managed to forget to include either of those parts in what you quoted. Trying to be deceptive, hey?
You said that one of the reasons that the name Internet Explorer was better was better was that it was "somewhat descriptive". That's right; you were the first one to use the word "descriptive". Why are you trying so hard to distance yourself from that?
I guess it is because you are a lying troll. It's such a shame. One of my New Year's resolutions was not to engage with trolls, and I fell at the first hurdle. So I will stop now, as there is no point in continuing with someone who either just simply repeats themselves and thinks that is an argument, or lies about what they have said even though anyone can look back up the thread. I am sure that you will do one more post to repeat your original statement again as if it is a fact and think that is a "win". I'll give you that. Congratulations, even though you will have convinced nobody and will deep down know that you are just a lying zealot. Good luck with all your future trolling.
What broken products? You claim things are broken, but you don't back up those claims. I use plenty of OSS software under Linux and rarely have problems, so what specifically is broken in which pieces of software?
I get it... I must list each and every bug in some exhaustive reply and, if I don't take the time, they don't exist. Cute.
I gave an example...managing the music on my phone via Playlist and both Amarok and banshee having problems doing so. That was just one instance right off the top of my head. I'm sure everyone here that has used Linux can add a ton more...including you if you were being honest.
And you do, "Tannhaus"? (I'm sure that's your true and legal name, right?)
That's the thing...it's not. It's my online identity and you're still too chicken to pin your comments to your Slashdot identity
The difference between distribution and OS is semantics which you only bring up because your argument is so weak. In addition, not all Linux OSes use the same base, so they are "proper" OSes in their own right...unless you think Android and macOS are mere distributions.
Good lord.... no it isn't. They all use the same kernel. The "core" is the same and they build on top of it: just like you don't have Samsung Android, Nokia Android, etc. It's all the Android OS.
So you watch what Netflix and Amazon tell you to watch. Personally I buy the movies I choose on media that I will own forever. I'm not big on subscriptions and rentals, especially on inferior quality internet video streams.
So you buy what the MPAA and stores tell you to buy... see how nonsensical that is? You have the thought patterns of a religious fundamentalist. No one is free and making their own choices unless they're making the choices you make. Otherwise, they're misguided and misled.
My Linux boxes can do more than I need. I guess if you're fifteen years old and need to play thousands of video games, then Windows might be appealing, but I am a grown man with responsibility, family and friends. I simply don't have the time or need to play that many games. What I can currently run in Linux is far more than I will ever be willing or able to get through in a lifetime.
What I do need is a stable, secure PC to do work on. My Linux boxes fulfil that need perfectly while Windows fails.
Hahaha. Oh, that is rich. Try to discredit me because I'm not making the same choices you are. I get it... "free as in beer" and the whole spiel. Use the buggy crap, but convince the people it isn't buggy crap hodge podge together. It's a movement! It's for a greater purpose! Nevermind the fact that's been linux's spiel since way back when it was a decent alternative to Windows 98. It no longer is. It's fallen sorely behind, not enough people fixing bugs and most of the software has stagnated. To do many things, you have to resort to software that isn't even being actively developed anymore. Oh, but not you, true believer...never you.
Oh and I'll just leave this hear to show that I was using linux as far back as 1998 as I claim:
Here's the proof
Or maybe the software I developed a couple of years back when I used Linux mint
If a legacy program expects strcpy() into a MAX_PATH-byte local variable to work, I don't see what can be made "graceful" about it.
I just figured they wanted a common "E-word" so they could use a variation on their "Big Blue E" trademark.
"Excel(lent)" was already taken, and "Edge" likely tested better than the logical alternatives "Error," "Eruption," "Evil," "Exit" or "Brand ECCHS" (with all due apologies to MAD).
Nope, still won't work.
Whatever, grandpa.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I swear, MS can simply do no right by some people. People are still chomping at the bit for them to fail. I will never understand it. Don't like their stuff, fine, don't use it. But the amounts of disinformation, made up "facts" etc. around this OS is more than usual funny. Adoption keeps growing, after the free period and people are besides themselves every time it's reported...
"Science is the power of man"
If you're not listening to the prefab you're out of date too. Congratulations, it means you're not part of the herd.
why feed the troll? i mean really....
I have seen ugly flame wars turn into really interesting discussions, and while it's the exception rather than the norm, it just cannot happen if one gives up on trolls too quickly. Things can turn nasty because some people are unable to manage their emotions, not just because they're being mischievous, so it doesn't always mean there's nothing worth discussing under the layer of childish insults.
When the discussion becomes only empty insults then it's a dead end, but as long as there's something to address that could be of interest to other readers I don't see a problem with feeding trolls.
lucm, indeed.
Your fanboy shit of "clearly has no clue what the hell they are talking about" is the way you treat people like a professional? As I see it, I am not treating you as a professional because you are not acting like one, so that makes two of us with mutual contempt, but I most certainly have not made this personal. Suggesting that you are completely and utterly incorrect is not personal - your "clearly has no clue what the hell they are talking about" came in many posts before my much milder "if you are under such a delusion" .
Only if your remote management tools are shit two decades out of date. Also guess what runs on those SANs - it's not MS Windows is it?
It's not the year 2001 with the mythical "longhorn just around the corner" that was going to be better than everything else so what are you still pushing that very stale old line?
But is Edge optional, or the default choice? If it is the default choice, how sure are you that people who use Edge have chosen to use Edge? And how sure are you that they just didn't take what was on the system because they don't know how to install another browser or simply don't care to install another browser?
It's passed as such but one is unable to change it's operation.
If I wish to view a PDF edge pops up and it's not a program meant for PDF many expected options are missing. So I'd select FoxIt (which came pre-installed) over and over again, yet Edge continues to open a selected PDF, open with: all tried - it has to be done manually.
As far as I'm aware, there exists no "properly formatted string" shorter than MAX_PATH bytes that correctly represents the absolute path of a file whose path components plus separators total MAX_PATH bytes. Or should Windows be automatically allocating and deallocating drive letter aliases whenever the user attempts to access an affected file using a legacy program?
Ok...last post, but have you stopped to wonder why people on Slashdot are downvoting you in this?
You're trying to twist this, but it doesn't work. You'd like it to be that I haven't seen a Linux OS in almost 20 years, but I've already shown that I started with Linux about 20 years ago and was developing software for it in 2013. I'd be willing to bet that gives me much more experience with the OS than you will probably ever have.
As far as the difference between operating system and distribution, I will summarize it as follows:
The operating system is called linux. It's mainly the kernel along with its drivers. It's what makes the computer operate...turn on, recognize the hardware attached to it, etc. But, while that makes the hardware operate, there is nothing for that hardware to do at this point. So, you package together a lot of software from different parties to get a full fledged OS that does all the things you expect your computer to do. Now, if you package together all these programs with the linux kernel then turn around and offer it to others (ie distribute it) then you have what is called a linux DISTRIBUTION. It's not a separate operating system. The core is still the linux kernel. But, it is a separate linux DISTRIBUTION.
Now, as far as your android question, you're attempting to create a strawman and put words into my mouth, but we will let linux.org answer this one:
Many of you may be unaware of this, but Android is Linux. True, they are not quite the same, but Android is Linux. For example, Ubuntu is "GNU/Linux" while Android is "Dalvik/Linux". If an operating system uses the Linux kernel, then it is a Linux system.
Now, the point he brings up is an interesting one. Richard Stallman is correct on that point: when most of us say linux, we actually mean GNU/Linux. Android may be a version of linux, but it is NOT GNU/Linux.