Lemdro.id

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/19267793

https://mastodon.social/@peterjriley2024/112436295100404451

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/22864214

https://mastodon.world/@jeffowski/112860220580543291

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/18679716

https://mastodon.world/@jeffowski/112368152131332805

(this is me btw)

LibreOffice continues to enjoy strong demand following the release of version 26.8 in August. According to new figures from The Document Foundation, the open-source office suite recorded 9.4 million downloads over eight weeks, from August 24 to October 18, averaging more than one million downloads per week.

Even more impressive, LibreOffice’s total downloads for 2026 have already surpassed the entire 2025 figure, with ten weeks still remaining in the year.

The latest numbers follow the record-breaking first week of LibreOffice 26.8, which saw 1,031,162 downloads shortly after release. Before the announcement, weekly downloads were slightly below one million but have remained above since.

And those 9.4 million downloads don’t tell the whole story. TDF explains that Windows updates are counted separately, as are downloads of older LibreOffice versions, which also continue to attract considerable interest.

To provide a broader picture, the foundation shared website traffic statistics for the same period. The main download website recorded 11.4 million visits, the Windows update website received about 90 million visits, and the site serving older LibreOffice releases registered nearly 39.7 million visits.

Of course, these figures represent website visits rather than actual downloads or installations, so they shouldn’t be added to the reported 9.4 million total.

As for what’s driving the growth, TDF acknowledges that it cannot provide a definitive answer. Since LibreOffice downloads are anonymous, the organization has no reliable way to determine exactly why more people are choosing the software.

“We like to think that the consistency of the LibreOffice project – which has been championing the concept of digital sovereignty and standard document formats for years – and the robustness of the software, which has never sought to be a clone of the most widely used office suite on the market but has always strived to forge its own path, are two very important factors that, in the long term, represent a significant advantage over all other products.”

Whatever the reasons, the numbers are impressive. This suggests interest in LibreOffice remains strong well after the initial excitement around version 26.8. And with more than two months left in 2026, the project is on track to finish the year with substantially more downloads than in 2025.

The attorney general’s comments come in the middle of a broader campaign by the Trump administration to zero in on what election experts say is a relatively rare phenomenon of voting by noncitizens.

Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday left open the possibility that the Justice Department could seek to block states from certifying votes in the midterm elections, though he said it wasn’t his intention to “improperly interfere with elections.”

NBC News reported this week that the Justice Department is weighing more election-related litigation against states after it sued California to compel state officials to review 18,000 registered voters it suspected could be noncitizens seeking to cast fraudulent ballots. California has an all-mail election and sends out ballots automatically.

Washington, D.C., and seven other states do, too: Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington. Mail voting has frequently been a target for President Donald Trump’s voter fraud claims, which have escalated ahead of the 2026 midterms, even as he uses the voting method to cast his ballot in Florida.

Snip:

The poll of more than 3,200 voters covered Georgia, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas, whose contests are expected to determine control of the Senate in the November midterms.

Support for blocking the bomb transfers started at 51 percent in North Carolina and reached 65 percent in Maine, while opposition stayed at or below 31 percent across all six states.

Voters in every state also backed cutting $3.3 billion in US taxpayer-funded weapons transfers to Israel by wide margins, from 22 points in Georgia and Ohio to 40 points in Maine.

Respondents across all six states further said Trump’s illegal war on Iran serves Israel’s interests more than those of the US.

The New York Times has added an editor’s note to an article featuring a Wedgewood poll that reads: “This page previously included surveys from Wedgewood Polls. On Oct. 20, after being questioned by the polling site FiftyPlusOne, Wedgewood released a statement admitting it had fabricated data for its polls. All of Wedgewood’s polls have been removed from our poll tracking project.”

Earlier this month, MS NOW featured a Wedgewood Poll showing Jocelyn Benson (D) with a 10-point lead over Trump-backed John James (R) in the Michigan gubernatorial race.

In addition to The Times and MS NOW, scores of media outlets and prominent poll aggregators cited Wedgewood polling data, including; Newsweek, Decision Desk HQ, and Mediaite.

https://archive.is/CYJxV