My experience with Windows 11 was "finally I got a new laptop, wow, that wallpaper is really nice, ok, let's install Zorin"
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Everything. I mean, Windows did a lot of ... strange Things in the Past. But this Recall Stuff ... That is a new Level of spying Users.
To be honest I'm very happy that I already look at Linux. With this News I would have to do it now anyway.
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People have a choice if want to be a slave Windows or free choice with Linux.
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Insulting Windows users will not help Zorin OS and any other Linux OS. If we are toxic, it will even kill our process.
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Me i'm kinda quitting Windows (except for gaming 
, since it works better on Windows), and switching kinda all my computers to Zorin.
Also this i what i will probably also say the next time i'l buy a computer :
So yeah, except for gaming, its goodbye windows
I don't think you're being alarmist about it. Microsoft has been increasing its reach on user data collection, even resorting to anti-competitive practices like imposing the use their browser of choice to their users. Even without the use of AI it's scary by itself. Sadly, I also don't think this will hurt them too much. As things stand right now, they are too big too fail as things stand right now.
Linux has seen a massive spike in adoption over the past couple of years. It took 30 years for Linux to get to the 3% of the desktop market share, but only a year after that to reach 4%. I think right now it's fluctuating somewhere between those figures. This is tiny compared to even MacOS but it shows at least some interest from people.
Now more than ever it's important to be welcoming, and drop the elitist attitude that you find in a lot of tech communities.
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This is important. If we impose anything on others, it is to do the same with Big Tech. If we cannot relate to others as equals, that is disaster.
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Oh yeah, CoSpylot because its Copilot that's spying 
I haven't tested myself nor seen anyone with actual knowledge talk about this, but, from my experience with "turning off" windows defaults, I'm sure some remaints will keep running in the background
Recently, because of EU law changes, I was finally able to uninstall edge with a simple uninstall button -no scripts, no command prompt-, so you would think that now windows's web search functionality in the search button would respect your default (and only) browser, right? Well no. It still uses the microsoft edge runtime and bing. And clicking on any web result with edge uninstalled doesn't open your default web browser, but the microsoft store, specifically edge's page
And there is also microsoft collecting data even if you uncheck around twenty prompts about it during the installation
Something tells me copilot and maybe recall will stay running in the background even when disabled. I don't have any sources to confirm this so you should take my statement with a grain of salt, but I would be more surprised if it actually didn't stay in the background than if it did
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It's mostly a mix of many things:
- Windows 11 releasing and not just being bad, but also leave unsupported many computers that are powerful enough to run the system perfectly fine
- Proton getting to a very usable point + Steam Deck showing to people who never considered linux that it's not actually that hard to use and can be even easier than windows in some tasks
- windows 11 getting worse with updates, so even people with supported computers want to escape from it
- Linux being mentioned almost everywhere lately (the other day I was watching a streamer who never showed his computer or anything tech related play a mario game and I saw someone in the chat try to ask him about linux. There is also many youtubers who talk about windows getting worse with updates who usually suggest switching to linux)
- Linux being way better when it comes to performance than windows (windows 10 used to take around half an hour to turn on with windows's "fast boot" disabled -it's basically just hibernate with a fancy name-, while clean boots on linux in the same laptop take around 2 minutes, which is still less than what it used to take with windows's "fast boot" enabled. Then, there's gaming: on windows I had to download optimization mods for minecraft to be playable, while on linux I not just don't have to, but I can even set the cpu to powersave, making it run at the minimum 1 GHz and the game is still playable)
I see people talk about the "year of the linux desktop", but I personally think it should be the "decade of the linux desktop", as this growth in the user-base is not about what happened in one single year, but about a series of events throghout the years:
2021: windows 11
2022: steam deck
2023: windows copilot announced
2024: windows blocking 3rd party apps that customize the taskbar and the "recall" feature
sure, linux is getting better throughout the years, but the main reason of its growth is windows getting worse: you don't usually search for an alternative tool if the one you use works perfectly and you don't see any problems with it
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I do not believe that the popularity of the Linux OS is due to the failure of Windows. One possible factor is that open source has become the established method of software development. Many developers understand the benefits of not having all their rights.
As an aside, I would like to see this new way of copyright spread to other fields as well. In my country, the creators of anime are worshipped like gods, and if I hurt their authority, I will go down in flames. 
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I may be wrong and there may be many other factors in here that I'm missing or can't remember at the moment, but the failure of windows is surely contributing to the growth, be it the main reason or not
The data says you are correct: according to an annual survey carried out by StackOverflow (a popular Q&A site among developers), Linux usage for professional developers consistently ranks among the top choices. I'm sure there's a lot up for interpretation here – Linux usage was reportedly at 55% in 2020, while only at only 26% in 2023 – but the trend is pretty clear: Linux is one of the most used operating systems among developers.
For non-developers though, I think that's where Microsoft's greed is playing a big role in pushing people away from them.
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You are from Japan? As a German I can tell You that we here know that the Anime Industry is a pretty ... tough Place for Work and not the nice beautiful Environment. And there are not God's - except Hayao Miyazaki, hahaha!
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For developers, it makes sense that they would prefer linux. I've heard linux has been better for that usage for a long time. In fact...
Even Microsoft prefers linux.
As much as there may be many developers in that 1 to 4% growth in linux marketshare in the last 3 years, comparing it with the amount of computers that are used today, in a time when even students are reliant on their computers, that means many millions of computers switched to linux. With all the advertising that has been done to linux lately to a non-developer audience, I'm sure that's where lots of people are coming from. Be it because their computer runs terribly on windows, be it because it's unsupported on 11 but works fine, be it because they just want a few more FPS in their game, a more customizable desktop experience or overall all the noise made by dissatisfied windows fans made many people find out linux is actually a really good and user-respecting operating system and gave it a try out of curiosity.
When I mention the failure of windows, I don't mean it just for people who hated windows and wanted to run away from it, but also about people who weren't aware of the alternatives and the noise made may have gotten them curious, taken a look, and actually enjoyed it more than windows or macOS. For around 2014-2020 I myself didn't even consider the idea that linux may help my computer run better and escape from the things I didn't like about windows. All this noise made me find out linux actually looks really good, gave it a try, saw performance was awesome aswell, there were also way less problems than on windows, stayed on linux. Could I have stayed on windows 10 until its end of life? Yes, this laptop is already starting to struggle a bit (mostly the battery, but even watching a video on youtube at 720p increases the temperature a lot...) and I'm most likely gonna have to replace it before w10 goes EoL. If performance was the same and, hypothetically, microsoft didn't do anything privacy-invasive in their OS, would I still prefer Linux? Yes. Because it looks better and lets me run it how I want to. Don't like the default desktop on Ubuntu? Well, I can switch to another distro that uses a different desktop or even install another desktop in ubuntu itself. Don't like some of the preinstalled apps? On windows, it took a new law to be able to partially remove edge. On Ubuntu?
sudo apt remove --purge snapd
Linux may have been better than windows since way before windows 11 came out, but windows was the dominant in marketshare and it was the most advertised one. If you go to a store to buy a computer, all you will see in operating systems are windows home, windows pro or mac (or chromebook since recently). Linux has been seen as "hard to install" for some time because it had to be installed, while windows and mac came preinstalled on most computers, and showing how easy it was to install linux wasn't a trending topic on the internet, at least until some years ago.
To summarize what I said in case this was too much text: Windows getting worse is not just telling unhappy windows users that there is an alternative, but also people who are fine with windows that there are alternatives that let them do much more than what windows ever did.
If you mean in regards to privacy, Linux usage is not a clear indicative of that. There are plenty of people who continue to rely on services and products from Google and friends, and flat out refuse to even consider alternatives. This is consistent with what you're saying: most people don't care about privacy.
I'm not really sure what this has to do with the topic at hand. It may be better to open a new thread to discuss DE efficiency?
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Mmm could be, repurposing old hardware has been a very common reason why people dare to adventure into Linux.
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It showing how light could be a full desktop only with kernel.
That means windows is what it is - propably i put somewhere here a long 3 hours video about microsoft how it working with 3 type "things" what are implemented inside.
If being light means less RAM consumption, then it is simple. But if it refers to user experience, then it cannot be expressed in numbers. Of course, low RAM consumption is desirable, as it allows the system to run on lower specs. But it does not guarantee a good user experience. It is a quality, not a quantity. So I don't hung up on numbers.
It is dangerous to simplify the complex. Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot, but his empire lasted only one generation.
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