Windows just fell below 60% market share for the first time ever, the same month Linux hit a yearly high. Here’s the full breakdown.

Windows just had its worst month on record. StatCounter’s newly published numbers for June 2026 put worldwide desktop market share for Windows at 56.61%, the first time it has ever fallen below 60% in the history of the dataset. Linux closed the same month at 4.36%, its highest number in a year. The r/linux crowd found the chart within hours, and the thread that followed was half celebration, half cross examination.

Here’s what the data actually says, what it probably doesn’t say, and why the comments didn’t believe it for a second.

  • thingsiplay@lemmy.mlEnglish
    10·
    15 hours ago
    Windows:  56.61%
Unknown:  21.45%
OS X:     11.89%  |
macOS :    4.48%  | --- 21.94%
Linux:     4.36%  |
Chrome OS: 1.21%  |

    I wonder what “Unknown: 21.45%” consists of. That is almost as much as OSX, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS combined “11.89+4.48+4.36+1.21 = 21,94”. This is a huge chunk. Also why is macOS and OS X listed separately, as they are basically the same group of operating systems. I mean we group all Windows into one, and even all Linux into one.

    • schmorp@slrpnk.netEnglish
      19·
      15 hours ago

      ‘Unknown’ is the secret OS all the cool kids are using. But we won’t tell you what it is!

    • ekZepp@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      14·
      14 hours ago

      A few things can cause that:

      • Browsers that now block operating system fingerprinting by default, a privacy feature several major browsers have quietly shipped in the last couple of years (Librewolf and Helium browser do that)
      • Bot and AI scraper traffic that doesn’t identify itself the way a normal desktop browser would
      • Locked down corporate or government machines with identifying headers stripped out
      • Modified or anonymized versions of Windows that don’t report themselves correctly
    • voidsignal@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      14 hours ago

      it means 21% are using some tracking prevention. Probably a lot of Linux users in here. This is good. And then there’re Linux users like me who pop one time as Chromium on mac, Edge on windows, firefox on atari…

      • thingsiplay@lemmy.mlEnglish
        6·
        14 hours ago

        It doesn’t necessary mean Linux. Given than Windows is going rapidly down and people get fed up with Windows a lot, but can’t or don’t want to switch to Linux, it is also probable that a lot of people go into stealth mode. Lot of YouTubers and media talk about the issues now. Then off course you have those niches grouped together like BSD and other systems, Tor browser and so on. It’s just a curious thing, because that makes a huge chunk of the entire user base.

        My curiosity is, consists Unknown a collection of many small groups or is there a huge group responsible?