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Linux didn't just eat 10% of Windows market share, AI bots are inflating the numbers
(www.windowslatest.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026
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How would that clearly be an outlier? Hindsight is 20/20, right?
Something strange with the March 2026 results was that it had two new distro entries, "0 64 bit" at 17.60% and "64 bit" at 8%. In April, one of those entries disappeared and the other's share dropped significantly. In May, both were gone entirely and Linux was back to a more reasonable marketshare of 4%.
I'll admit that weird and unexplained data is a hint to something going wrong. Shame on steam.
Because these numbers experience wild fluctuations on a regular basis. Does it make sense to you that people are just joining and quitting Windows by the masses simultaneously?
There was nothing that would have explained a more than doubling of Linux desktop market share.
It was not that difficult to come up with a more likely explanations and some people where quick to mention AI crawlers/agents, which did actually explode in numbers.
But why would those crawlers participate in the steam survey?
The latest results I saw from steam actually showed an increase in Windows 11 market share.
The 10% was based on browser user agents.