Desktop and big jump of Linux .. it was wrong

A share of Linux users on the desktop which jumped from 3.37% to 6.91% between August and September. This is what figures from Net Applications (NetMarketShare) indicated for several days. Except that a correction has just been made.

This share of users has not actually increased. On the contrary, it has come back down, and September marked a break from the upward trend observed for Linux on the desktop computer. No spectacular leap.

Net Applications retrieves data from browsers of nearly 160 million unique visitors per month on a network of over 40,000 websites. Statistics are adjusted based on CIA demographics to take into account the various Internet penetration rates around the world.

There may be a problem with this weighting. This point was not specifically clarified, but a NetMarketShare marketing manager did tell ZDNet that the reported Linux share was not correct. " We are aware of this issue and are investigating it. "

The correction was therefore applied. It was not a user share of 6.91% for Linux but 3.04%. The correction also applies to the figures that had been announced for Windows and macOS, respectively 90.61% and 6.35% now.