A British Uphill Battle to Eliminate Microsoft and Its American Back Doors

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 02, 2026

UK Desktop Operating System Market Share

Today GNU/Linux is measured (by statCounter) at about 5.33% in the UK (less than the global average, 6.7%).

I can see the difference in "everyday life".

There are places of work and homes where GNU/Linux is installed and regularly used, not as a mere hobby but as a hyper-productive, practical tool.

"Aftermarket installations are, of course, important," an associate points out, "but the real battle to win would be the elimination of Microsoft's monopoly over the OEMs. Until it is possible to once again buy a GNU/Linux system off the shelf in a big box store, it will remain an uphill fight."

This is also a matter of digital sovereignty. █

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Writing for Good: The Web has an abundance of junk
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXVIII - Microsoft Doesn't Want People to Speak About Microsoft-Controlled Restricted ('Secure') Boot, a Silent Injustice and Back Door/Kill Switch: Can we please stop treating this as normal or acceptable?
Links 01/11/2026: Digital Minimalism and "Palantir Cofounder Announces Cruel Plan to Breed Thousands of Lab Monkeys for Medical Experiments": Links for the day
When Large American "Tech" Companies Can No Longer Complete Payroll: In spite of several very large waves of Dell layoffs, which the media reported on, it seems like they are still experienceng payroll problems, maybe that's why money is being borrowed
GNU/Linux Rises in African's Largest Population: 15% in Nigeria [...] A country with over 200 million people
The Register MS Has Just Published a Fake Article With "AI" 28 Times in the Page (Communist Party of China Entity Paid for That): In IRC, someone has just pointed out that an article at The Register MS repeats Microsoft's lies about its financial situation
Windows Down to All-Time Low, Says statCounter, While Microsoft Tells 60,000 Workers They're No Longer Necessary: Microsoft must be feeling "salty" right now
A British Uphill Battle to Eliminate Microsoft and Its American Back Doors: There are places of work and homes where GNU/Linux is installed and regularly used, not as a mere hobby but as a hyper-productive, practical tool
Technical Coverage of US Elections: When elections are done by computers and decided by computers it becomes a tech issue
By Killing the "Linux News Section" in Softpedia (the Most Popular Section, Based on Its Editor) Softpedia Killed Itself: Enjoy Ballmer
Linkspam in "It's FOSS" Today (and It's Not Even FOSS): free-to-access ad for some dodgy companies and the URLs are 'tampered' for cashback
Links 02/11/2026: Slop Destroying Mathematics and "Democracy is Not on the Ballot" (in US): Links for the day
Celebrating Photography, Celebrating Life, Celebrating Magnificent Humanity, Not Plagiarism Disservices: Any time we adopt or spread slop imagery we are participating in the problem
Year-Long Celebration Starts on Saturday: This coming Saturday we turn 20
On Desktops/Laptops, Clownflare Sees Windows at Under 60% and GNU/Linux at 15% This Past Weekend: Impressive if accurate
Microsoft Lunduke is Slop: Microsoft Lunduke is just trying to stir up hatred
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXVII - Shooting the Messengers (People Who Oppose Microsoft Back Doors), Even Across the Atlantic: Keep this in mind later this week when a dictator either discredits the voting or covertly tampers with the voting process
Microsoft Wants 60,000 Employees Gone (One Way or Another): At IBM, 15% of staff got marked as candidates for removal; at Microsoft it's almost 30%
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 01, 2026: IRC logs for Sunday, November 01, 2026
Jean-Claude Van Linus: Claude talking?
Gemini Links 01/11/2026: OpenBSD, Broken MicroHDMI, Nextcloud, and More: Links for the day
IBM Vapourware on a Budget (to Grab Bailouts From US Taxpayers): Anderon is the sort of thing that makes IBMers uncomfortable
Microsoft Accenture in Trouble, Accenture’s Debt Skyrockets: Seeing a wave of adoption of Free software in Europe, it's not exactly shocking that "consultants" from Microsoft Accenture are no longer in demand
Microsoft Says Its "Goodwill" Value Has Been Declining for Years, But It Also Claimed That Doubled in One Year: Wall Street deserves far more criticism or scepticism (at the very least)
SkyChatz: From Nothing to #2 in IRC (in Less Than a Year): Second only to Libera.Chat
Making Up Words or Inventing a Vocabulary: Or why Large Language Models are useless
Assange on What Lula Means to Free Press: Here in the UK we've also found our 'Lulas'
GNU/Linux is No Underdog (But There Are Attempts to Put It "To Sleep"): There's a moral imperative
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXVI - The "Law and Order" Candidate Who Crushes Both Law and Order and Even Rejects Election Outcomes (Insurrection Follows): A world without real technical security is a world void of democracy, justice, and human rights
Links 01/11/2026: Malaysian Media Perishing, France Belatedly Identifies Social Control Media as Weaponised Yellow Press: Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/11/2026: "Trick-or-Treating seems to be dead, at least in our neighborhood"; BaseFree Numerical System and Human Emacs: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 31, 2026: IRC logs for Saturday, October 31, 2026
Gemini Links 31/10/2026: MangoWM, Qutebrowser and Codeberg, Plugh: Links for the day
Massive Cuts Inside Microsoft (the Media Does Not Talk About That): It is in many ways like IBM a decade ago
In US Government Sites, GNU/Linux Measured at New All-Time High of 7% (or About 10% Across Desktops/Laptops Alone): There's no doubt GNU/Linux is growing
Intel Has Just Lost in One Single Day Over 150 Billion Dollars in 'Value' (Market Cap), Intel is Also Over 50 Billion Dollars in Debt: This really says a lot about Wall Street and the slop bubble, doesn't it?
They Hate Him Because He's Effective: Effective voices invite more aggressive censorship attempts
Audience Growing in Spite of the Deluge of Webslop: We probably benefit from the rejection of LLM slop
The Munich FUD Tactics (Microsoft Modus Operandi): Microsoft-Connected Sites Claim Denmark Failed With Free Software, But That's Not What Actually Happened: With Microsoft, it almost always boils down to politics
Links 31/10/2026: John Romero Comeback After Being Shafted by Microsoft, Google Faces Criminal Probe Over Deforestation in Finland: Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/10/2026: Rambling on Self-hosting and Ad Video Screens Don’t Make Money: Links for the day
Can't Trust Big Banks, Let's Try 'Bros' Instead?: But let's blame "North Korea"
IRC's Growing Popularity in 2026: No company controls or profits from IRC, it is in the Commons
"AI" as Surrogate for Debt and Distraction From Computing (Bots Described as "Agents" and/or Any Form of "Intelligence" is More Like a Religion): We're letting people without even college degrees game the "market" (Wall Street) by lying to it
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXV - Election Integrity at a Time of Back Doors and Very Severe Bugs in UEFI: How dare British media comment on insurrection following a US election?
"The Judge Accepted That Mrs Schestowitz Had Been the Subject of a Vicious Campaign of Online Harassment": That's consistent with how they men treat women
Gemini Links 31/10/2026: Hallowe'en and "Thinking About People": Links for the day
Links 31/10/2026: The Hinge on Apple's Constantly Breaking New Foldable iPhone Was "Built With Slop", Slop Causes Cash Squeeze GAFAM: Links for the day
Amazon's Debt Skyrockets by Almost 100 Billion Dollars in 9 Months: On top of that there is additional (secret, kept stealth by accounting tricks) debt
Google Illegally Destroyed a Quarter Million Trees Without a Permit for a Hypothetical Project That Might be Cancelled, Debt Has Soared by 30 Billion Dollars in 3 Months ($10 Billions Borrowed Per Month): Google is bleeding from slop
Slavery at Microsoft: illegal if true
Many People "Left" Red Hat This Month, Including Yesterday: We already saw this with SUSE
Gemini Links 31/10/2026: "Where I Draw the Line With" Slop Plagiarism and "Nobody Cares That You're Leaving Proton" (Over Slop): Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 30, 2026: IRC logs for Friday, October 30, 2026