Using a Windows 7 laptop as a daily driver in 2024

[NikoB]

Here are a couple of moronic clowns, as usual in the thread. The author lies that the weight and dimensions are huge for 16", to which I rightly objected to him that this is not so - the Dell G5 5587 is even larger and thanks to such weight and dimensions at that time it turned out to be the top machine in terms of silence. The stupid clowns began to look for shortcomings where they are not, as usual...

[Neenyah]

Lmao, bro has a brick laptop with a 57% sRGB, 220 nits, 1080p 15.6" panel (that's 141 PPI, yes) but is trolling all the time about displays and calling them all s*** with his superior eyesight that's far beyond of what any hawk or owl can even imagine with their shameful eyes.

Yeah... I've experienced similar behaviour with friends wanting to purchase a new laptop. The high requirement wasn't the display though, but the dGPU. This one also having a brick from more than a decade ago, now wanted an ubergaming laptop with the best dGPU and everything else is unacceptable or sh**, despite the fact he hardly played games at all and could never use that much power at all.

Not sure where this behaviour comes from, but I guess it's when you sit on the same laptop for too long, and only observe see the progress and features of new devices, your expectations for a new laptop rises at the same pace. And when you finally want to buy one, the requirements for the new laptop are way way above from what they actually need.

That is very weird but it is not unusual, heh. Happens most often with smartphones where people buy current flagships and then don't use anything more than their very basic functions. And with PCs, a lot of people buy hardware, and then are trying to find where and how to use it, what for in terms of apps and other scenarios. I would say it is 50/50 with them against those who buy hardware accordingly to their needs.

In your experience with your friend it is probably that nice feeling that we all used to have when we were kids and we knew that something new is coming (as a present or something similar) plus the fact that their laptop was already old so they wanted to go as high as possible to future-proof it and make sure that 10 years down the line it will feel much better than their current 10-y.o. laptop feels now. There is nothing wrong with that approach, IMHO, going the completely overkill route, as long as one's financials can keep pace with that because going into dumb debts or so just for a piece of tech is not really smart.

Here are a couple of moronic clowns, as usual in the thread.

You are the one who continuously keeps spamming with how 4K downscaling to FHD gives you pixel-perfect image because it's exactly 4x less pixels; well, I will say again - you downscale your 1080p panel to 960x540 and then enjoy your own preaching. That will tell you who is actually a moronic clown here (hint - look at the mirror and you will find him).

[Hotz]

That is very weird but it is not unusual, heh. Happens most often with smartphones where people buy current flagships and then don't use anything more than their very basic functions. And with PCs, a lot of people buy hardware, and then are trying to find where and how to use it, what for in terms of apps and other scenarios. I would say it is 50/50 with them against those who buy hardware accordingly to their needs.

In your experience with your friend it is probably that nice feeling that we all used to have when we were kids and we knew that something new is coming (as a present or something similar) plus the fact that their laptop was already old so they wanted to go as high as possible to future-proof it and make sure that 10 years down the line it will feel much better than their current 10-y.o. laptop feels now. There is nothing wrong with that approach, IMHO, going the completely overkill route, as long as one's financials can keep pace with that because going into dumb debts or so just for a piece of tech is not really smart.

True true...

[RobertJasiek]

Linux on my laptop and Im wondering does it need Antivirus software like windows does?

Wrong question. AV software is only the last means of security. Before, one must establish basic security. And yes, it has become as necessary for Linux as for Windows to set data separation, user access rights, software rules, firewall, think before acting etc.

[asdff]

does it need Antivirus software like windows does

No

[NikoB]

No

Hahaha, it is generally useless against zero-day attacks and is a Trojan horse (another layer) in your system, besides slowing down the system for nothing. Only idiots install antivirus software.

Let me remind you that in Windows, all versions and in Linux, all popular distributions - the default basic firewall does NOT block all network activity except what is explicitly allowed. You need to force this filter to be enabled.

The second security failure is that any software that gains root access can easily bypass firewall protection.

Thus, the firewall and the target system must be physically different devices to truly control risks. The firewall, in the OS on the target platform, can only control benign applications, but not malicious ones, that have received root access (a simple yes/no in the same Windows).

Auditing modern code is generally an impossible task for one person or even a serious team (and often the effort for an entire country, most countries of the world), especially if there is no 100% source code. And in Linux there are also no 100% sources of all firmware and drivers, if you want to have a system with up-to-date drivers and firmware for the most modern hardware.

On smartphone OS, everything is a priori an order of magnitude worse - the majority of the population does not have any, even minimal control, in the OS, their data and actions are the property of those who make firmware and smartphones. They themselves, voluntarily, initially, agreed with this policy of the manufacturers.

[A]

Hey guys I am thinking of Installing Linux on my laptop and Im wondering does it need Antivirus software like windows does? Look forward to hearing from you thanks.

No it doesn't

Hahaha, it is generally useless against zero-day attacks and is a Trojan horse (another layer) in your system, besides slowing down the system for nothing. Only idiots install antivirus software.

AV isn't useless, heuristic scans can sometime pick up zero day exploits. On top of that many AVs count the amount of files ran, and are more cautious if you run some exe that few others ran

Let me remind you that in Windows, all versions and in Linux, all popular distributions - the default basic firewall does NOT block all network activity except what is explicitly allowed. You need to force this filter to be enabled.

Blocking all network activity out of box is crazy for average users. You are bound to run into more problems for average users if you block everything. I've seen no shortage of windows users accidently open up the firewall and think it is a good idea to "block everything" thinking they'd be secure only to complain why their apps aren't working. If you want full security, QubesOS Linux is what you want. You can open up apps with no network access

The second security failure is that any software that gains root access can easily bypass firewall protection.

Thus, the firewall and the target system must be physically different devices to truly control risks. The firewall, in the OS on the target platform, can only control benign applications, but not malicious ones, that have received root access (a simple yes/no in the same Windows).

You shouldn't give non-system apps root access to begin with. Linux requires that you enter a password any time you give root access. With containers and flatpaks, you can even give some root access without compromising the system. Of course that isn't perfect, but good enough for most cases. Immutable Linux distros are the future

Auditing modern code is generally an impossible task for one person or even a serious team (and often the effort for an entire country, most countries of the world), especially if there is no 100% source code. And in Linux there are also no 100% sources of all firmware and drivers, if you want to have a system with up-to-date drivers and firmware for the most modern hardware.

You don't audit the whole thing, you audit changes. And every commit is goes through reviews, both when committed and downstream

There is also open source firmware if you buy computers that have open hardware, coreboot and the like

[NikoB]

Blocking all network activity out of box is crazy for average users.

Hahaha, leaky from the start, security is madness for the average user. But this means that the average user is an idiot.

You shouldn't give non-system apps root access to begin with. Linux requires that you enter a password any time you give root access.

Hahaha and Windows too, if the user does not have Administrator privileges. The Yes/No question is asked only to those who possess them, but in reality does not protect him in any way.

Who at home will act as a system administrator if not the user himself? "A", as usual, is engaged in cheap demagoguery.

The "average" user, unlike people like me, will not even understand where it is dangerous and where it is not. Therefore, he will stupidly click "Yes" to the UAC question. Most people don't even check unknown exe (binaries), at least on sites like virustotal. They just launch it and that's it, answering "Yes" to the UAC question, and then everything is elementary for the malware.

Even the OSs themselves are malicious in this regard, until you explicitly create a physically independent firewall that blocks any unauthorized activity. In Windows versions, everything is done in such a way that M$ traffic is simply encrypted so as not to be blocked by such firewalls at the DPI level of analysis. This is exactly what professional security analysts write about.

Linux is Babylon or an oriental bazaar, where there is a complete mess and there is no one to bear any security, much less legal responsibility.

After receiving EVERY new copy of the Linux distribution, the user needs to conduct a full code audit, if he can. But he can't do it 100%, no one can. And to this end, the issue of "security" in Linux is automatically closed as a loss for the user, as well as in the case of user vs. M$. The difference is that in the second case, at least in the case of a legal copy, the owner can still sue the company if they can prove that they suffered damage from their activities. And no agreements that contradict consumer rights laws and civil and criminal codes will help M$ lawyers. The only question is the difficulty of collecting this evidence, but this has already happened in history. But with Linux, there is no one to sue at all - no one is responsible for anything in it. You are on your own and all the developers don't even formally care about you...

you audit changes.

I have already asked the question 100 times - when was the last time a certain "A" conducted a code audit? Not to mention the average person. =)

[A]

Blocking all network activity out of box is crazy for average users.

Hahaha, leaky from the start, security is madness for the average user. But this means that the average user is an idiot.

But products are aimed at average users with options for those technical users who are more than capable of setting whatever setting they want

You shouldn't give non-system apps root access to begin with. Linux requires that you enter a password any time you give root access.

Hahaha and Windows too, if the user does not have Administrator privileges. The Yes/No question is asked only to those who possess them, but in reality does not protect him in any way.

Who at home will act as a system administrator if not the user himself? "A", as usual, is engaged in cheap demagoguery.

But the main user is generally the administrative user, and someone in your house/work/public place can run something they shouldn't. A yes or no is hardly secure.

The "average" user, unlike people like me, will not even understand where it is dangerous and where it is not. Therefore, he will stupidly click "Yes" to the UAC question. Most people don't even check unknown exe (binaries), at least on sites like virustotal. They just launch it and that's it, answering "Yes" to the UAC question, and then everything is elementary for the malware.

That is the problem, OS have to be average user friendly but at same time have safe defaults. Pressing Yes is not a safe default. How many times I had to tell people to stop hitting okay to installing ActiveX components because people just kept hitting okay without thinking.

Even the OSs themselves are malicious in this regard, until you explicitly create a physically independent firewall that blocks any unauthorized activity. In Windows versions, everything is done in such a way that M$ traffic is simply encrypted so as not to be blocked by such firewalls at the DPI level of analysis. This is exactly what professional security analysts write about.

AVs sometimes handle these things by setting their own ssl certificate, then proxying everything through the AV so they can decode and ssl traffic and scan it for maliciousness. Of course that doesn't handle the privacy issue

Linux is Babylon or an oriental bazaar, where there is a complete mess and there is no one to bear any security, much less legal responsibility.

Not really, that is only if you get a non-paid linux release. There are enterprise versions from Suse, RedHat and Ubuntu(through a plan) where they take legal responsibility as you are a customer and fully protected under the law

After receiving EVERY new copy of the Linux distribution, the user needs to conduct a full code audit, if he can. But he can't do it 100%, no one can. And to this end, the issue of "security" in Linux is automatically closed as a loss for the user, as well as in the case of user vs. M$. The difference is that in the second case, at least in the case of a legal copy, the owner can still sue the company if they can prove that they suffered damage from their activities. And no agreements that contradict consumer rights laws and civil and criminal codes will help M$ lawyers. The only question is the difficulty of collecting this evidence, but this has already happened in history. But with Linux, there is no one to sue at all - no one is responsible for anything in it. You are on your own and all the developers don't even formally care about you...

Again, you don't need to do an audit yourself unless you want to. Code is reviewed by multiple 3rd parties, from the code reviews when it is merged to security agencies and governments. When a release is made it comes with a checksum to insure validity

Again, there are paid versions of linux. You are confusing open source as all being free with no accountability, but that isn't the case. Open source licenses mostly just mean if software is distributed to you, you have the right to see the source code. That is all. If you buy an enterprise license from Suse, RedHat or Ubuntu. You have same legal rights as you would when you get windows

[NikoB]

AVs sometimes handle these things by setting their own ssl certificate, then proxying everything through the AV so they can decode and ssl traffic and scan it for maliciousness. Of course that doesn't handle the privacy issue

M$ doesn't care about these root certificates - they encrypt telemetry and who knows what else with their own hidden key (public), and only they can decrypt these messages transmitted by the OS to M$ with their private key. This is why even the coolest security analysts write that they cannot understand what kind of traffic goes into M$. If they know this, then only the intelligence services of those states to which M$ agreed to provide the OS source code and encryption keys. Guess what are the chances for an individual or a small-medium company to gain access to this? None. 0%. In Linux, the situation is the opposite - with the apparent presence of source code (but again this is not 100% code, but only part of it, since drivers (the most productive and fully functional) for actual hardware are also closed binaries), its volume is as follows: that no one is able to carry out constant monitoring, i.e. audit of this code. Not to mention the gullible "average" users, for whom Linux a priori represents an extremely dangerous security sieve with an unknown number of third parties to whom their information is leaked. Unlike a commercial product M$, where the person responsible is known in advance. Guess why people still refuse to choose free Linux in favor of the leaky Windows sieve? ;)

But products are aimed at average users with options for those technical users who are more than capable of setting whatever setting they want

Q.E.D.

By the way, here is a good example of the arrogance of corporations using the example of the scoundrels from Google with their filthy Chrome - a living example - in the latest versions of Chrome, three switches for advertising appeared, everyone knows them in the settings, because Now, if you deny Chrome access to the Internet during installation, then disable all three of these items (and a lot of others), and then enable Internet access for Chrome, when you start it again you will immediately find that all these switches are active again and they remain disabled only after being disabled again. Thus, sneaky Google ensures the collection of telemetry unknown to the user, at least for the first time when Chrome has access to the Internet, although the user had already EXPLICITLY prohibited it from being transmitted in the settings. This is pure crime, but this is how Google and other companies steal customer data. Violating your own obligations in the settings. This is pure crime.

Not really, that is only if you get a non-paid linux release. There are enterprise versions from Suse, RedHat and Ubuntu(through a plan) where they take legal responsibility as you are a customer and fully protected under the law

You contradict yourself in previous speeches - this is NOT free software anymore! And this is NOT AVAILABLE to the "ordinary" user.

Blocking all network activity out of box is crazy for average users.

Hahaha, leaky from the start, security is madness for the average user. But this means that the average user is an idiot.

But products are aimed at average users with options for those technical users who are more than capable of setting whatever setting they want

You shouldn't give non-system apps root access to begin with. Linux requires that you enter a password any time you give root access.

Hahaha and Windows too, if the user does not have Administrator privileges. The Yes/No question is asked only to those who possess them, but in reality does not protect him in any way.

Who at home will act as a system administrator if not the user himself? "A", as usual, is engaged in cheap demagoguery.

But the main user is generally the administrative user, and someone in your house/work/public place can run something they shouldn't. A yes or no is hardly secure.

The "average" user, unlike people like me, will not even understand where it is dangerous and where it is not. Therefore, he will stupidly click "Yes" to the UAC question. Most people don't even check unknown exe (binaries), at least on sites like virustotal. They just launch it and that's it, answering "Yes" to the UAC question, and then everything is elementary for the malware.

That is the problem, OS have to be average user friendly but at same time have safe defaults. Pressing Yes is not a safe default. How many times I had to tell people to stop hitting okay to installing ActiveX components because people just kept hitting okay without thinking.

Even the OSs themselves are malicious in this regard, until you explicitly create a physically independent firewall that blocks any unauthorized activity. In Windows versions, everything is done in such a way that M$ traffic is simply encrypted so as not to be blocked by such firewalls at the DPI level of analysis. This is exactly what professional security analysts write about.

AVs sometimes handle these things by setting their own ssl certificate, then proxying everything through the AV so they can decode and ssl traffic and scan it for maliciousness. Of course that doesn't handle the privacy issue

Linux is Babylon or an oriental bazaar, where there is a complete mess and there is no one to bear any security, much less legal responsibility.

Not really, that is only if you get a non-paid linux release. There are enterprise versions from Suse, RedHat and Ubuntu(through a plan) where they take legal responsibility as you are a customer and fully protected under the law

After receiving EVERY new copy of the Linux distribution, the user needs to conduct a full code audit, if he can. But he can't do it 100%, no one can. And to this end, the issue of "security" in Linux is automatically closed as a loss for the user, as well as in the case of user vs. M$. The difference is that in the second case, at least in the case of a legal copy, the owner can still sue the company if they can prove that they suffered damage from their activities. And no agreements that contradict consumer rights laws and civil and criminal codes will help M$ lawyers. The only question is the difficulty of collecting this evidence, but this has already happened in history. But with Linux, there is no one to sue at all - no one is responsible for anything in it. You are on your own and all the developers don't even formally care about you...

Again, you don't need to do an audit yourself unless you want to. Code is reviewed by multiple 3rd parties, from the code reviews when it is merged to security agencies and governments. When a release is made it comes with a checksum to insure validity

Again, there are paid versions of linux. You are confusing open source as all being free with no accountability, but that isn't the case. Open source licenses mostly just mean if software is distributed to you, you have the right to see the source code. That is all. If you buy an enterprise license from Suse, RedHat or Ubuntu. You have same legal rights as you would when you get windows

You have gone in a vicious circle again. Do you remember where you started? That in the absence of developer responsibility to you, as is the case with free versions of Linux, you yourself are obliged to audit the code. But the "ordinary" user and even a professional are not capable of this, because... This task is non-trivial and extremely labor-intensive even for a team of professionals.

Trust someone in the modern world? This is just naivety and idiocy.

This is why the vast majority of the world's inhabitants choose Windows, despite its formal paid nature. Even in pirated installations, users are well aware that M$ has much more responsibility for the operation of the code than the community of Linux developers, who have no responsibility at all. Otherwise, everyone would have long ago fled to where it was more profitable, right? But users do not see any benefit in free Linux. And because of the reality of a completely leaky and poorly made OS and because of the lack of a lot of commercial convenient software, which can also be delivered in the form of a pirated installation and which is simply not available on Linux.

People are constantly looking for benefits and choose what they consider more profitable. It's simple. Linux lost miserably. It has not increased its share in the desktop OS market over the past almost 30 years. But Torvalds became a billionaire. He's certainly great.

[A]

In Linux, the situation is the opposite - with the apparent presence of source code (but again this is not 100% code, but only part of it, since drivers (the most productive and fully functional) for actual hardware are also closed binaries),

There are open source drivers and open hardware, like System76, Framework is also working towards it.

its volume is as follows: that no one is able to carry out constant monitoring, i.e. audit of this code.  Not to mention the gullible "average" users, for whom Linux a priori represents an extremely dangerous security sieve with an unknown number of third parties to whom their information is leaked

Of course you can... I mean data is sent over network, you can monitor where the network traffic is going...

. Unlike a commercial product M$, where the person responsible is known in advance.

How would you know who the culprit is in advanced if the source of it is a closed source driver on windows?

Guess why people still refuse to choose free Linux in favor of the leaky Windows sieve? ;)

Because people buy hardware? Linux isn't an option in most OEMs, if it is an option, it is a hidden option. Asking "Average users" to install operating systems is a bit stretching it

Not really, that is only if you get a non-paid linux release. There are enterprise versions from Suse, RedHat and Ubuntu(through a plan) where they take legal responsibility as you are a customer and fully protected under the law

You contradict yourself in previous speeches - this is NOT free software anymore! And this is NOT AVAILABLE to the "ordinary" user.

I never once used the word free in this entire thread(I double checked)... other than to say don't confuse open source with free...

You have gone in a vicious circle again. Do you remember where you started? That in the absence of developer responsibility to you, as is the case with free versions of Linux, you yourself are obliged to audit the code. But the "ordinary" user and even a professional are not capable of this, because... This task is non-trivial and extremely labor-intensive even for a team of professionals.

You seem to be confused about something. Many distros offer free versions of their paid distro, it just has their proprietary code stripped out, limit security updates to shorter time tables(you can upgrade to keep secure). Your concern was simply keeping people accountable. So I was pointing out that if keeping people accountable is your worry, then paid versions exist. Otherwise, there are free versions which are just as good.

Trust someone in the modern world? This is just naivety and idiocy.

That is why you don't trust in a single source, you have multiple webs of trust

This is why the vast majority of the world's inhabitants choose Windows, despite its formal paid nature. Even in pirated installations, users are well aware that M$ has much more responsibility for the operation of the code than the community of Linux developers, who have no responsibility at all. Otherwise, everyone would have long ago fled to where it was more profitable, right? But users do not see any benefit in free Linux. And because of the reality of a completely leaky and poorly made OS and because of the lack of a lot of commercial convenient software, which can also be delivered in the form of a pirated installation and which is simply not available on Linux.

The majority of the world never "chose" windows, it was chosen for them. As we saw with windows phone, most did not choose it over Android(Linux). Even MeeGo(also Linux) outsold windows phone in same markets it was released

It's like saying you chose to be spied on with windows

People are constantly looking for benefits and choose what they consider more profitable. It's simple. Linux lost miserably. It has not increased its share in the desktop OS market over the past almost 30 years. But Torvalds became a billionaire. He's certainly great.

Yet Android(Linux) continues to dominate in all operating systems space, Linux dominates routers alongside its cousin BSD, and most servers are Linux, they also dominate super computers

Linux marketshare in Desktop did grow, from 0.69% in 2009 to 3.82% in 2024

You'd be surprised what choice does. Just having chromebooks sold alongside other desktops, despite how limited they are, chromebooks in US was able to get almost 3x the marketshare of Linux, peaking at 7.58% in 2023 (I use US as an example because not all countries sell chromebooks)

To show how much Linux Desktop can grow given the chance, just look at India which is the country with the biggest population in the world. In 2021, Linux owned 3.6% marketshare, in 2024 it is now at 15.2% marketshare

[NikoB]

This is a blatant lie. The majority of the world's population uses a pirated version of Windows. They chose and installed Windows themselves because it is 100 times easier than installing and configuring any Linux distribution. As well as the presence of many convenient and commercial programs that can also be installed pirated. M$ managed to sell sales of no more than 30% of the desktop OS market, the rest of the share belongs to pirated installations, which M$, as I showed above, itself promotes, especially since 2015, when it actually allowed mass illegal (legally) activation on its servers and did nothing about it for 9 years. This clearly speaks of the company's policy - to retain the market at any cost, especially business, allowing massive pirate activations among the population.

If Linux distributions were so popular and easy to install/configure and were full of opportunities to install valuable pirated commercial software, everyone would have forgotten about Windows 15 years ago. But in reality, why are hardware manufacturers in no hurry to write proprietary drivers, much less open source code for the most modern hardware? Only under Windows and that solves everything. If you want modern hardware with full-featured drivers, install Windows. I constantly read forums and reviews of people buying equipment. And no one except specific developers installs Linux distributions if the laptop comes without an OS. And in my country, for example, laptops without OS account for more than 70% of the market. And still everyone installs Windows. Nobody needs free Linux, because Windows, in fact, for home, is also completely free. And the reliability and comfort in it are an order of magnitude higher for the average person.

So your Linux whining is belied by the ruthless reality in which Windows crushes Linux distributions, even when the laptop does not have an OS.

And it is for this same reason that Android easily defeated Windows Phone on smartphones - it was the first and did not depend on the previously accumulated code base. It simply wasn't available for smartphones. But Linux has no chance in the desktop OS market, unless M$ itself destroys Windows.

[mmk]

This is a blatant lie. The majority of the world's population uses a pirated version of Windows.

"As of January 2024, Android, a mobile OS which uses the Linux kernel, is the world's most widely used operating system. It has 41.61% of the global market, followed by Windows with 29.02%"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share

Please do note, I am pretty sure pirated versions of windows are included in that 29% statistic. It's not like most people running pirated windows are changing their registry values so their OS shows up as Linux or something lol. It very easy to detect a pirated version of windows as still being windows.

everyone would have forgotten about Windows 15 years ago.

People kinda have tbh. I don't know of anyone today who's actually still proud of using windows besides the fact they're able to run programs from 2 decades ago. But when we talk about modern software of *today* windows is a disaster on every front.

My old dad's windows 7 desktop just died. Guess what he replaced it with? Android tablet. My mom had an old windows laptop which she never really used as she's not good with PC's. She no longer has it anymore and just replaced it an iPhone SE, which she actually uses everyday now because it's easy for her to use and understand.

M$ managed to sell sales of no more than 30% of the desktop OS market, the rest of the share belongs to pirated installations

if the laptop comes without an OS. And in my country, for example, laptops without OS account for more than 70% of the market.

even when the laptop does not have an OS.

No, I don't think you understand how these OS stat counters work. They're not counting Microsoft sales of windows OS but actual active users (doesn't matter if they're using valid licenses or not - that's irrelevant). To be an active user, a windows machine simply has to be connected to the internet to count, that's all. Unless you're saying somehow there's a hidden half billion pirate windows users that don't use the internet at all? So I don't understand why this "laptop without an OS" point even matters.

unless M$ itself destroys Windows.

That's exactly what they seem to have done. Well, I guess an argument could be made how intentional it was but regardless.. one cannot ignore that one of the biggest reasons to stay with windows is for gaming and what have they done about that for the last 10 years? Forget about improving it, they've introduced shader compilation stutter. They've actually made it far worse. This is coming from the same company that runs Xbox. Games that run on Xbox and PC run the exact same dx12 code. How on earth they still cannot fix it is beyond me..

The other unintentional part is, I don't think MS realized how much external forces would affect them. By external forces, I mean stuff like the stagnation of x86, gpu prices, x86's poor wattage efficiency or just how much arm would improve, etc. The average person just wants to check email and watch videos on youtube. Why do they need to spend 1200 on a x86 windows machine, when for half the price you can get android/iOS that does the same thing, except with double the battery life, way lighter and no noise/heat? Not to mention far less chance getting virus or crashing.

MS made a huge mistake tying windows down to x86 so much, which resulted in much of this occurring. I think they've realized it now which is why it seems for future Surface devices it's rumored they've gone full on snapdragon x elite with no intel except for enterprise versions. But much like Intel, it's just too late...

The only reason I've not fully switched yet is due to the lack of proper anti-cheat support for online multiplayer games by dev's. But this is only a matter of time and marketshare on desktop. With the rise of steam deck, mac gaming, and just things being targeted to be more open and cross platform then ever, I think eventually this issue will be solved in the not too distant future too.

[NikoB]

The market share of Windows on laptops and desktops is more than 75% and this is an indisputable fact. Of this share, more than 70% are pirated versions from individuals. Just like other commercial pirated software for Windows. This is what makes Windows so strong.

The reason why Android is in the lead is obvious - 50%+ of the world's population simply doesn't have even $500 for a laptop. They are poor and all their savings are enough for is a cheap $100-200 smartphone. This is why smartphones have become so widespread. And naturally, a smartphone is simpler, because... everything is preinstalled there, and the tasks of their owners are very primitive. Where the tasks are a little more complicated, the smartphone is immediately thrown (figuratively speaking) into the trash. The advantage of a smartphone is that it is always with you. A truly personal device. But in poor countries, even one smartphone can be used by an entire family in turn, which is why even manufacturers write special versions of firmware that improve comfort when quickly switching user profiles. Which is unthinkable in the developed and rich world.

The second reason why you should not use a smartphone is also trivial - a laptop screen is many times larger and more comfortable for the eyes with an ergonomically adjusted font size and the amount of information displayed at the same time. Not to mention even larger monitor screens. Even 15 years ago. Poor people have no question of any level of comfort. Is it comfortable to watch a movie on a 6" diagonal or scroll through complex desktop versions of websites, view documents in A4 format, PDF, etc.? You won't believe how many millions watch this in poor countries, without even having a large TV at home.

Therefore, in developed countries with a certain income, Windows will remain the key desktop OS, and the complex and dangerous "free" (your lost time = your lost money) Linux will continue to eke out a miserable existence on PCs/laptops.

Windows, like iOS, is most often used in the most prosperous developing countries and developed countries, where incomes allow you to have laptops and PCs at home. And they will never give up the comfort of a laptop/PC in favor of a smartphone with its insignificant screen (albeit very high quality (250ppi+) for text compared to the shameful screens with ppi below 180 in most modern laptops and especially monitors), but not among the 4 billion (minimum) poor people with negligible income and opportunities. For whom a 5-6" tank viewing slit is the only window into the world of the Internet.

[A]

This is a blatant lie. The majority of the world's population uses a pirated version of Windows. They chose and installed Windows themselves because it is 100 times easier than installing and configuring any Linux distribution. As well as the presence of many convenient and commercial programs that can also be installed pirated. M$ managed to sell sales of no more than 30% of the desktop OS market, the rest of the share belongs to pirated installations, which M$, as I showed above, itself promotes, especially since 2015, when it actually allowed mass illegal (legally) activation on its servers and did nothing about it for 9 years. This clearly speaks of the company's policy - to retain the market at any cost, especially business, allowing massive pirate activations among the population

Again you make a baseless assumption on nothing. Most people in the world are not installing their own pirated windows. Even prebuilt pcs, many come out of box with pirated windows. To quote:

"A 2018 study reported that at least 91 per cent of PC users in India are using a pirated copy of Windows. In fact, even when one buys a new PC or a laptop with preinstalled Windows, 80-85 per cent of the time, the user gets a pirated copy of the operating system. "

Also a side note that some of the windows % are likely linux as well. As most of the source of users is useragents, changing the useragent to windows to be harder to identify for privacy reasons is fairly common (of course to be clear I am not saying this is a major amount of people, but it is there)

If Linux distributions were so popular and easy to install/configure and were full of opportunities to install valuable pirated commercial software, everyone would have forgotten about Windows 15 years ago. But in reality, why are hardware manufacturers in no hurry to write proprietary drivers, much less open source code for the most modern hardware? Only under Windows and that solves everything. If you want modern hardware with full-featured drivers, install Windows. I constantly read forums and reviews of people buying equipment. And no one except specific developers installs Linux distributions if the laptop comes without an OS. And in my country, for example, laptops without OS account for more than 70% of the market. And still everyone installs Windows. Nobody needs free Linux, because Windows, in fact, for home, is also completely free. And the reliability and comfort in it are an order of magnitude higher for the average person.

So your Linux whining is belied by the ruthless reality in which Windows crushes Linux distributions, even when the laptop does not have an OS.

And it is for this same reason that Android easily defeated Windows Phone on smartphones - it was the first and did not depend on the previously accumulated code base. It simply wasn't available for smartphones. But Linux has no chance in the desktop OS market, unless M$ itself destroys Windows.

Drivers in general has been fairly streamlined for much hardware. Which is why compared to old days, in modern days most hardware works out of box. This is partly due to Microsoft requiring drivers to be more generic so they could trim off the fat. As often times even with windows, you had half the hardware not work out of box unless you manually installed the drivers, which was terrible since most common thing not to work was the wifi driver. Even worse when they got rid of LAN on computers, forcing you to use either an adapter or have another pc and transfer it via usb drive

Thus, even for linux these days 90% of the time it is plug and play.

More and more software is going into the cloud, and with the Windows 11 requirements of TPM, pirates are going to have a blast with harder to break DRM