20% of web users are still running Windows 7

Since the inception of this site, we have regularly discussed trends in operating system marketshare. One company that has been a reliable provider of statistics is NetMarketShare, but this firm is now ceasing its reporting.

The reason for this is very simple. For privacy reasons, browser makers are going to stop providing user agent strings. Coupled with the increasing complexity to detect bots, NetMarketShare has decided to call it quits because it's no longer possible to provide accurate marketshare data.

As such, the company's October 2020 will be its last. Let's take a look at desktop marketshare to see how things stood at the end of October! First up, Windows 10 is without a doubt the most widely used operating system on Internet-connected computers, with a marketshare of 64.04 percent.

What's a bit worrying is that even now, 20.41 percent of users are still running Windows 7. As you may know, Microsoft ended support for Windows 7 on January 14, 2020 so over a fifth of all Internet-connected PCs haven't received security updates for almost 10 months now.

Mac OS X 10.15 takes the third spot with 4.88 percent marketshare and Windows 8.1 ranks fourth with 2.81 percent. Even good old (but totally insecure) Windows XP still has 0.87 percent marketshare.