A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch
What are you doing Microsoft? In the last few days, almost all of the headlines on tech news sites were about the Chrome Browser replacing Internet Explorer as the most used browser. Even though I don’t use IE very much, I became even more concerned when I read the the usage statistics include Microsoft’s new Edge browser in the totals. This means that IE has slipped even more that the totals reflect. Of course, one of the main reasons IE ever had such a high usage is because it has always been the Windows Operating System Default browser. With the past years push by Microsoft to update users to Windows 10, they can no longer use what has been the dominant browser.
I’ve written in the past my reasons for not installing Windows 10 on any of my main computers. Not only is the OS still not stable enough for me to trust with my daily use machines, I have no desire to install it on my old hardware. I do have it installed on two machines and it works great, when it works. It seems that about every other update messes up my settings, uninstalls some of my software or does some other niggling thing that makes me utter a few bad words.
I’m not planning to ever install Windows 10 on my two Windows 7 machines. Aside from my hardware concerns, I’ve got them both running exactly like I want. The only thing I don’t like about them is that I’ve had to disable Windows update. Once a week or so, I check for updates and carefully scrutinize them before I install. I don’t want to install a new operating system by accident.
Four years ago, in July of 2012, I wrote an article for the newsletter explaining why I switched from a Windows phone to an Android. Since then, all of my mobile devices have had Android Operating Systems. It looks like I was ahead of the times. Today, Windows Mobile is around four percent and sliding lower. Do you suppose this might be the result of many users like myself? Customers get tired of waiting and move on. The problem is that they often don’t move back.
I think the same thing is starting to happen with the Windows desktop/laptop Operating Systems. A slow slide into oblivion. Although there are no real accurate statistics, it isn’t hard to guess that Linux, Chrome OS and others are increasing in use. Could this be happening because of Microsoft’s “strong arm” tactics to get everyone to use Windows 10? Only time will tell, but I’d bet that many people are like me, using Linux more and more.
I will probably never know whether I am right or wrong, but I am starting to believe that in twenty years or so tech writers will only be writing about the history of Microsoft. It’s not anything new in the technology world. Just think of Commodore, Gateway, Lotus 123, Netscape, IBM, WordPerfect, AOL, Yahoo!, Motorola, Blackberry, Polaroid and many others. Will Microsoft one day be just a footnote in the history books?
Thanks for reading.