Bonum Certa Men Certa

Net Applications Finally Shows It's Just a Joke: Mac ‘Market Share’ Halved Overnight!

Summary: Net Applications changes its mind about so-called 'statistics'

WE HAVE been writing extensively about how Net Applications, contrary to Steve Ballmer, places Apple ahead of GNU/Linux in terms of market share. But Apple is virtually out of existence in the large majority of the world's countries and it has been known for many years that GNU/Linux had gained a lot on the desktop, globally speaking.



For those who do not yet know about Net Applications admitting the deficiency of their US-oriented 'results' (and tweaking of them too), not to mention having Microsoft as a paying client and having staff with Microsoft history, read the following:



From the Fortune/CNN Web site comes the following rant which shows just how 'reliable' Net Applications must be now that Apple sees a rise in performance, whereas Microsoft reports a sharp decline.

Net Applications: Apple just lost half its ‘market share'



The so-called market share reports issued every month by Net Applications have long been controversial — mostly because they didn’t actually measure market share (which business people typically express as the number of widgets they sell in a given period divided by the total number of widgets sold).

What Net Applications did instead was sample data from browsers visiting their clients’ websites and report what percentage came from machines running Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.


If almost 10% can become 5% overnight (based on some secret recipe), how reliable can those numbers be? Since Net Applications refuses to show its methods and its data, its results are as useless as those that arrive from Black Duck.

“Just having a lot of IP addresses means nothing; it is the distribution and the population of IPs that count...”It is funny how Net Applications always raves about number of IP addresses. Just having a lot of IP addresses means nothing; it is the distribution and the population of IPs that count (here is a great example of it). Net Applications keeps its data secret, obviously, so it usually means it has something to hide, something to be embarrassed of, like Diebold. It is biased in favour parts of the world where GNU/Linux adoption is already known to be very scarce, notably the United States.

Speaking of GNU/Linux adoption, not many people are even aware of the fact that, according to the following new report, "all of the members of the European Union (EU) are required to use open source Linux-based software exclusively, and this includes everything from operating systems to office applications." Here is a broader quote:

When I thought about it, the list of open source software applications is actually quite long. Some of the major open source applications you may have heard about include MySQL, Apache Server, Wordpress, Mozilla Firefox, Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal, just to name a few.

I found it interesting to hear that all of the members of the European Union (EU) are required to use open source Linux-based software exclusively, and this includes everything from operating systems to office applications. There is also a move afoot here in this country to attempt to do a similar thing. A couple of the major programs are Government 2.0, that hopes to leverage Web 2.0 federated social networks in government, and Open Source for America, that advocates greater acceptance of open source software and efforts.

[...]

Open source Linux actually fostered the emergence of a couple of computer categories – the netbook, including the one laptop per child (OLPC) program where a good percentage are sold with Linux as the operating system.


What is the market share of GNU/Linux on the desktop? According to statistics from the Boycott Novell domain, it is approximately 40%. Honest.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Representing and Speaking for Animals
If I ever choose to take this matter to tribunal with animals-centric NGOs on my side, it'll get some press coverage for sure
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Slop Images in VentureBeat, Linux Foundation Spam Made With LLM Slop and Slop Images
The only relief or upside - if any exists - is that the pace of slop was down a bit this week
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress Will be Remote
This past week RMS received lots of accolades online
 
Links 29/08/2025: Lisa Cook Sues Convicted Felon and Backdoor Mandate in UK Resisted
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Arti 1.5.0, War on Public Health (CDC), and Slop 'Bros' Made to Pay for Their Mass Plagiarism
Links for the day
No, 4Chan is Not Fighting for You by Lawyering Up Against Ofcom (UK)
Don't mistake proto-fascists for people who "fight for you". They don't.
Downlplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
we won't publish much whilst on holiday
In Many Places in the World Vista 11 "Market Share" is Going Down, Not Up
In some countries Windows is already down to third place or lower
More Microsoft-Connected Layoffs, at Least Third Time This Month! (Also Another Death on Campus)
Microsoft as a "gaming" company is where studios, projects, games, and even developers come to die
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 28, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 28, 2025
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Poems, Games, and Java 25 Performance
Links for the day
Links 28/08/2025: Greenland 'Interferences' by US and Skinnerboxes to Get Banned in Korean Schools
Links for the day
The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives): Free Software is Putin, Hence Evil and Dangerous
The current editor in chief is an American Microsofter, the previous one went to work for Google (US)
Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
Links for the day
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
Vista 11 is going down rather than up
Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
Links for the day
12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
Links for the day
Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025