Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Windows 10 Gains 14% Desktop Market Share in 2016, Edge Continues to Struggle (petri.com)

Posted by msmash on from the market-share dept.

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.

40 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. So what? by barrywalker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:So what? by Snotnose · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yup. Win10 uptime is well under a week, figure 3-5 days before a reboot. Typically a reboot that happens while the laptop is closed and your snug in a rug sleeping.
      Got the uptime up to 3-5 days by realizing I could restart Windows Explorer when it crashed, which it does 1-2 days in.
      Win10 is the buggiest, most unreliable PoS I've run in decades.
      Did I mention I "upgraded" from Win 8.1 to 10 because I was installing something, and Microsoft took that millisecond to put up the "Pssst. Hey bud, wanna upgrade?". I clicked yes but Microsoft changed what "yes" meant on me.
      Games. Gotta quit playing games and put Microsoft into the categories of toilet paper I've wiped my ass with, then flushed and forgot.
      Why the fuck to I have to put HTML formatting into posts here? I can't just hit CR twice, I have to enter between paragraphs. Really?

    2. Re:So what? by caseih · · Score: 2, Informative

      Linux user here. I have Win10 installed on a tablet and also on a full-time, always-running virtual machine. Seems pretty stable and solid to me. I don't like how settings are dumbed down, and I'm not a fan of constant communication with MS (I have everything turned off that I can). Overall I am much more impressed with Windows 10 than I thought I would be. It's pretty solid, if ugly (hate the flat, white look).

      No idea what you are talking about with having to use html formatting. CR twice to start a new paragraph works for me. No formatting here.

    3. Re:So what? by gweihir · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That is basically what the numbers say. The 15% increase means these are mostly replacement PCs and laptops, and people likely cannot get Windows 7 for them easily or transfer it form their old machine.

      Personally, I will not move to Win 10 before I can block updates indefinitely and I can turn off spying ("telemetry") reliably. If that does not happen, then I will go to one gaming-only Win10 machine, no email, no browsing, no non-gaming uses at all, and a Win7 VM for Office with no network connection on a Linux basis. Everything else will be Linux, which I use for a lot of work already anyways.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    4. Re:So what? by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That is basically what the numbers say. The 15% increase means these are mostly replacement PCs and laptops, and people likely cannot get Windows 7 for them easily or transfer it form their old machine.

      I think it's more likely that 15% was gained during the most egregious cases of Microsoft pushing it really hard on windows 7 users (i.e., clicking the red X doesn't cancel the upgrade, or outright removing the red X) and doing other dirty tricks that are quite mean to their customers, like upgrading without any prompt at all and then you can't cancel until 10 is already installed and running where it shows you an EULA, then after you refuse the EULA it downgrades back to 7. Each operation is quite dangerous for the typical PC user because when things go wrong, (and they do) they usually can't fix it, or even be able to google a fix. But, Microsoft doesn't see a problem with that, as it went on all throughout the first half of the year. After that was over, the quarterly gains Windows 10 saw were very tiny, usually 0.5% +/- 0.15%

      It will probably take two years or so before 10 sees a 30% market share, it will likely be until 2020 that it sees 7s current market share.

    5. Re:So what? by Snotnose · · Score: 2

      You seem to think I wanted this upgrade. The Win10 update "wanna update?" box came up when I was about to click on something completely different, then I was afraid to stop the upgrade for fear my laptop wouldn't boot again.

      So no, it's not a clean install. It's also not a desired install.

    6. Re:So what? by jez9999 · · Score: 2, Funny

      And all the "help" icons in the corner, instead of opening up a proper help application with info on the current page, simply open up Edge with a Bing search for "Windows 10 help". That made me LOL.

      --
      == Jez ==
      Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
  2. Would help if Edge actually worked by snickers · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Would help if Edge actually worked by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Funny

      I can't be bothered to spend more than an hour trying to fix it.

      Neither can Microsoft, since they let their QA department go. /rimshot

    2. Re:Would help if Edge actually worked by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      The outsourced QA. That's what the telemetry is for - why run it in their office and pay people to shake the bugs out, when they can run it on your computer and will you find all the bugs for free?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. So... after a year of ... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 5, Insightful
    giving away Windows free of monetary cost, and using what seemed to be malware-like tactics to trick Microsoft customers into installing Windows 10 even if they did not want to, Window 10 has less than a 25% marketshare?

    .
    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.

    1. Re:So... after a year of ... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...seriously...

      Seriously... when Microsoft has to change the fundamental operations of Windows UI controls, going against the published guidelines of how those controls should work, the users are not "too fucking stupid" when they expect Windows controls to operate as they always have operated.

      From the linked article:

      ...Last week, Microsoft silently changed Get Windows 10 yet again. And this time, it has gone beyond the social engineering scheme that has been fooling people into inadvertently upgrading to Windows 10 for months. This time, it actually changed the behavior of the window that appears so that if you click the “Close” window box, you are actually agreeing to the upgrade. Without you knowing what just happened....

  4. Chrome works by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Funny

    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/
  5. Edge is a POS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  6. Re:Browser market share - who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Because they want to use it to break the standards?

  7. I want to believe by grasshoppa · · Score: 3, Funny

    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!
    1. Re:I want to believe by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 2

      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.

      Apply that same thought pattern to the crap that is the latest version of Firefox...

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    2. Re:I want to believe by amiga3D · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Firefox is still usable. I don't care for a lot of the changes but I still find myself having to shift back from Chrome occasionally. I looked at Edge on a Win10 setup and I figure I'd have to install Chrome and Firefox if I had Win10.

    3. Re:I want to believe by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Edge is a great example of how not to develop software. You can see very clearly what has happened.

      Under the hood it's actually quite good, does well with standards compliance, is reasonably secure and fast. On top of that the UX people built something that ranges from mediocre to annoying, with the most touted features being little more than gimmicks. Then management really screwed it up, ticking boxes like "had sync capability" without bothering to check if it's actually useful to most people, and demanding some changes directed by marketing like the forced adverts for the shit you are already using.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  8. Re:Of course Edge is struggling... by damnbunni · · Score: 2

    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.

  9. What percentage? by techno-vampire · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:What percentage? by QuietLagoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ...Nadella's Microsoft isn't really about Windows and Office any more....

      I would agree. With a caveat.

      It's not about Windows anymore. But Office may still be in the picture.

      Office is the stranglehold that Microsoft has on its corporate victims. The future of Microsoft is Azure, but Microsoft needs to keep Office around to force its customers to stay with Azure instead of another cloud provider.

      If Microsoft can lure customers to Azure without the lock-in of Office, then maybe a Windows-less Microsoft has a reason to be profitable in the future.

    2. Re:What percentage? by Raenex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We've been telling people for decades that Microsoft cannot be trusted

      They took it to a whole 'nother level with Windows 10 fuckery. Honestly, while Microsoft has always been ruthless against competitors, they generally used to treat their customers with at least some modicum of respect.

      Things started going downhill as the computing landscape opened up to more aggressive tactics driven by software that treated their users as the product.

    3. Re:What percentage? by swb · · Score: 2

      I hear so much talk about the future of Microsoft being Azure, it also kind of seems like the future of electricity generation being fusion. The march continues to the goal line but he goal line keeps moving, leaving you closer but no nearer.

      VM workloads are still fantastically expensive on Azure and nobody seems really interested in database as a service functionality due to the immense lock-in. Network bandwidth from most buildings is just too expensive to get the throughput necessary to offsite significant data unless all but the display part of its lifecycle is in the same cloud.

      And while raw CPU has kind of stagnated, vendors keep pushing increasingly dense computing solutions with flash storage on the precipice of eliminating spinning disk completely for capacities around 100 TB. 2U of rack space with tens of TB of flash storage, a couple of TB of RAM and still more CPU than anyone can actually use.

      I just see too many companies figuring the bill for Azure VMs plus lock-in at the services level plus the comms charges and just not seeing why they shouldn't stick with ridiculous performance advantages locally and bypass the uncertainty of cloud.

  10. Re:cue the linux fucktards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  11. Re:Compared to Firefox, Edge is doing great. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?

  12. Downgrading to Windows 7 by guacamole · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Downgrading to Windows 7 by Waccoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Haha... there's always some asshole that can't resist blaming the user. If the task manager can't tell you which process is using all that CPU time, I'm pretty sure that's a deficiency in the design of the OS. What do you do when the Windows Modules Installer (ie, TrustedInstaller) is using all that CPU time? Blame Realtek, apparently.

      Next you'll insist that if WindowsUpdate uses up 100% time on one of your cores for 30+ hours, that's user error as well! That, despite this being a VERY well known problem for many years and the only solution is to manually hunt for and install the "right" KB update to update the Windows catalog file. Which KB update? Who knows? It changes every few weeks or so, so go to the MS forums and ask everyone else what magic patch to install.

      One of my biggest problems with Windows10 is that its behavior, particularly with regards to background maintenance, is wildly inconsistent. Sometimes it'll idle for a day without using any CPU time at all, and then it thrashes the CPU and storage drive like crazy for the next 10 hours. Despite Microsoft's claim that Win10 only performs background maintenance when your machine is at idle, my experience has proven that's total bullshit. The OS does what it wants, and being a black box by design, go ahead and tell me what the machine is doing with that 10 hours of CPU time.

      Then there's the lovely fact that configuration settings can just change for arbitrary reasons. If you defer updates too many times, the OS will lock out the config setting that lets you defer updates. Yes, it will literally just grey the UI out so you can't change it anymore. With so many hidden gotchas going on in the background trying to protect you from yourself (or prevent you from having any control over your PC), I'd image this makes Win10 practically untestable. How do you diagnose a system that just changes its own configuration willy-nilly? No wonder it's buggy as fuck and settings just reset to the defaults after certain updates (but only for some people and not others). The only way to diagnose a problem is to reinstall and cross your fingers.

      MS built an OS where you don't know what's going on. Clearly, that's why you know it's always user error, and not bad design, that's the problem.

  13. Edge by hackwrench · · Score: 2

    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.

  14. Re:cue the linux fucktards by tepples · · Score: 2

    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.

  15. X-UA-Compatible: IE=edge by tepples · · Score: 2

    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.

  16. The rush for DirectX 12? by AHuxley · · Score: 2

    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"
  17. Re: Of course Edge is struggling... by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

    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.
  18. Re:Compared to Firefox, Edge is doing great. by justthinkit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  19. Re:Of course Edge is struggling... by SeriousTube · · Score: 2

    Edge has a grand total of 21 extensions in the windows store last I checked a few weeks ago.

  20. Re:Electrolysis makes Firefox responsive again by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 2

    Try uMatrix as an alternative to noscript. Same author as uBlock. Note that it may be a little overwhelming at first.

  21. But Firefox increased is market share by afc_wimbledon · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  22. edge stinks by smithcl8 · · Score: 2

    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.

  23. Never gonna give you up (to a point) by lucm · · Score: 2

    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.
  24. Re: "that I'm aware of" by buchanmilne · · Score: 2

    "Where is the evidence for your claim? My experience with my Windows 7 -> Windows 10 upgrade was such that there was a nagware screen from the system tray that afforded me the option to upgrade or not upgrade."

    Really, you didn't see all the stories about complaints from users whose Windows 7 devices can't run Windows 10 adequately and got upgraded without ever actively opting in, or in some cases without any notification except being greeted with a Windows 10 login screen, or worse.

    Here is an example article of how that dialog you saw changed when Microsoft wasn't satisfied with the slow adoption of Windows 10:

    http://www.pcworld.com/article...

    That was the first links from googling obvious search terms ...