Windows dips below 50% of web traffic to US govt websites | Hacker News Reader

Windows dips below 50% of web traffic to US govt websites

analytics.usa.gov

108 pointsumeshunni57 comments

I am visiting elderly relatives this week, so I get my anecdotal updates. The Windows machine was under a towel (for dust) which basically means it isn't being used anymore. The story: after clicking no every time, his Windows 7 machine auto-upgraded to Windows 10. He has figured out how load Internet Explorer to find his links, but is baffled by the rest of Windows. So he went out and upgraded his phone to a new Samsung smartphone and uses it for all of his email and web searches. He still needs a bigger device and is planning to buy an Android tablet because he thinks it will be similar to his phone and easier than figuring out Windows 10. He also wanted to know if he can still get viruses on Windows 10, which is his other reason to switch to Android. I showed him how he can use voice to interact with his device because his eyesight keeps him from using his devices for long periods of time. Saying "Ok Google" is really un-intuitive, he actually wrote it down. Also, he found new games to replace the ones he played on Windows.

So this Windows 10 auto-update could very well be pushing people to abandon their desktop/laptop altogether if they don't have a use case forcing them to keep Windows.

Similar story here, but with iPad (good accessibility for old people eye sight). Only Apple iCloud is still baffling (my cloud storage is full? I think I forgot my password?), but many things like TouchID make it easy to use and the simplicity of the system is unkaputtbar/secure compared to a "real" computer.

iCloud storage is baffling to me too, and I work in tech!

ive tried to explain it until i was blue in the face to my girlfriend, finally gave up.

I just don't use it for iCloud backups. Plug my iDevices to iTunes for local backup once a month and it's all peace.

Linux distros becoming easier to use than Win10, I know people in their 70 that are happy Manjro users and you don't have to be tech savvy to use it. The only problem i heard there was fonts, but even that is usually still better than windoze on most distros. Ubuntu MATE is particularly good for accessibility, with magnification if your hardware handles Compiz correctly otherwise Marco (Compton GPU compositor) is great.

I haven't had any font issues with Manjaro (Deepin community release) or Antergos (MATE). Text looks great right out of the box. I can't say the same for vanilla Arch, but that's to be expected really.

I've been using The Deepin Desktop Environment for a bit over a month now, and I have to say it is easily the best desktop environment out there for Windows users right now. It looks close enough to 7 and 10 to be familiar, but it's far easier to use. Deepin OS is now my go-to recommendation for new Linux users, especially since they have an agreement with Codeweavers to include Crossover in the distro free of charge.

It's probably too late now but you can revert it back to a previous MS Windows version, eg https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/instantanswers/1235b5b0-....

My wife and I have been using a chromebook as an inexpensive browser at home, with our work laptops if we need anything more intensive (we don't).

We're looking to get one for my mother in law as well, to give her a smoother computing experience.

If ChromeOS weren't a security nightmare (Google have complete access to one's system), I'd recommend it in a flash to non-technical folks.

How long will it be until organisations such as Google & Mozilla realise that people cannot trust them? And how long will it be until people realise that they cannot trust organisations such as Google & Mozilla?

Install GalliumOS[0] on a Chromebook. Security nightmare averted.

0. https://galliumos.org/

That looks pretty cool, but why GalliumOS instead of just plain Debian?

keyboard/touchpad support, mainly. the drivers for most of the chromebooks haven't landed in mainline kernel yet.

(I maintain patches for Gentoo/Calculate)

Well, you can't trust anyone 100% but as organizations go I don't have much problem with Google having access. There was a recent report of 1 in 10 people in England and Wales being victims of cybercrime last year including 2.5m incidents of bank and credit card fraud. That's what I'd worry about which Google are probably better at blocking than most.

> Well, you can't trust anyone 100% but as organizations go I don't have much problem with Google having access.

Which means you trust every Google executive, manager, employee & contractor, as well as every agency of every government Google is beholden too.

I trust myself, and myself alone.

Do you have any tin foil left so the rest of us can make hats too?

> Do you have any tin foil left so the rest of us can make hats too?

That's not an argument; it's an insult.

Do you have any actual rebuttal to my statement that trusting Google means trusting 'every Google executive, manager, employee & contractor, as well as every agency of every government Google is beholden to,' or a rebuttal to my implication that this is unwise?

Yes: Google has internal controls on information access, and government access is subject to legal processes, and governments don't automatically share all information between agencies. Your argument is hyperbole.

Because everyone that walks by the google campus is given unaudited access codes to all the servers?

Wow, these are really good stats. I wish my government had something like this.

Was this created by the United States Digital Service[0]? I've heard great things about them.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Digital_Service

Close. It's 18F Digital Services Delivery. The website says the code is on github [1]

[1] https://github.com/18F/analytics.usa.gov

pretty straightforward google analytics API data gathering. easy to make, this code makes it even easier.

It's both. 18F hosts the code and led the development, but there were major contributions from USDS (such as the visual design). And the program itself is owned and directed by the Digital Analytics Program, another team in the GSA. It was a team effort.

Mobile keep growing which is the result of the dip in traffic from windows. As a desktop, windows still strong.

Unless you can show absolute numbers, you can't call it a "dip".

Like many in various industries there has been a huge push to support mobile, and thus the effect the larger % of the population who use mobiles vs pc's comes into effect

Why is that? He's just pointing out that the dwindling numbers are not necessarily because of a desktop market share decline but because of the growth of mobile. We're seeing this everywhere.

The point is, as a _share_ the numbers are dwindling, but we can't tell from the share numbers whether the _absolute numbers_ are dwindling, stagnant, or still growing (albeit slower than mobile growth).

Interesting that Windows 7 is still twice as common as Windows 10.

Don't know about the US government specifically however it's not uncommon for the government to be the biggest single user of it's websites, followed usually by business/corporate users. If this is the case in the US also then a lot of business users have not upgraded to Windows 10 yet.

Hey dogma1138, I manage this program. Only about 4% of total traffic is from within US gov networks.

The US Postal Services' websites are by far the most visited.

Followed by things like the Weather services and then things related to health or social security.

Those are "costumer"-oriented sites. But then again, some of them could be browsing from their work computers.

That doesn't necessarily mean much, every time I went to the post office here in the UK and asked for something specific they went on their website and printed a page for me (not the most efficient use of resources but hey it works), there's also the case of terminals at public government offices where the public can go to use online resources (home office, and job center are a good example of that), this could be not that different from 30% of the site hits for HSBC in the UK which are from within the internet banking terminals in the branches.

But as tdlowden said apparently only 4% actually comes from US government networks so I guess it's not the case, tho I don't know if it's only federal or also local government since the US has a very tiered form of government.

I found it interesting as well that more people seem to be using IE 7 vs 9 or 10.

It's because 9 + 10 auto-upgrade to 11 unless you turn it off in automatic updates.

Kinda funny how the NASA & NSF sites see a lot of Linux usage (because their visitors are geekier) but less Android usage (because they are more upper-class, and Apple devices are a status signal).

Are Apple devices really seen as a status device?

Maybe I don't see it because I don't need validation.

> Are Apple devices really seen as a status device?

By the sort of person who'd rather pay extra for a Mac than just use Linux, sure. I remember seeing an acquaintance wax eloquent to another acquaintance about how perfectly designed the iPhone is (it's not: it's a plain black box) — it was really just a way of showing to his acquaintance how wise and clever he is to appreciate the emperor's new clothes.

> Maybe I don't see it because I don't need validation.

Me neither, which is why I haven't bought an Apple computer in this millennium.

iPhone's are quite nicely designed. Nothing's perfect though.

In fairness, I have 2 phones. My personal phone is an Android, because I'm cheap. My work phone is an iPhone, and it has MUCH better battery life.

Most features might be quite similar, but as far as I know, using [Objective] C on custom hardware is more efficient than pseudo-Java, resulting in less battery usage, and better audio latency for stuff like Garbage Band on my iPad.

... At least until the Android JIT catches up. When that happens, Android code might well become better/faster, due to there being less of it to glean the intent from. But we're not there, yet. And I'm definitely on a tangent now :-)

(and, I have all 3 major OSs on various home computers)

>Are Apple devices really seen as a status device?

By people that don't understand why people would actually prefer an Apple device over the competition, certainly. It's one of the anti-Apple crowd's favorite narratives. We're all just sheep that buy into Apple's marketing.

Have you ever seen Apple's marketing? Better question, have you ever had an interaction with Apple where they weren't trying to sell an image to you?

I completely believe that among a technical audience that those here who chose Apple products did so because they evaluated the their options and chose the one that best fit their requirements, But if that was really their primary audience their marketing would look very different.

Have I seen ads? Yeah, but most of the ones I've seen are kind of hokey platitudes about the good they're doing for the world. I don't recall anything saying I'm higher class for having their products. I don't see a lot of ads though.

Part of marketing is guessing what kind of products will sell for the margins they like. Somehow, I fit into that audience.

Wow, that's a US government page. Good job!

No wonder, given the post-PC era began a few years ago, shifting the focus to portable devices. Although I believe we're entering a post-post-PC era, w/ IoT and VR/AR on the horizon (both of which consume orders of magnitude more internet than ordinary mobile phones.)

Confirmed: Russian hackers use Linux.

I think Windows has become obsolete. For most people it's now something you choose to install in increasingly annoying update windows vs automatically installed on new PCs that used to sell like hotcakes. Everyone was automatically opted out of Windows 10 as they kept using old computers with no compelling reasons to buy a new PC again (probably 'ever' for most people). Phones usurped a lot of tasks that are more convenient that way and that will only continue.

I think Google will do some damage to Windows next year through Surface clones and Chromebooks. Chrome OS is getting pretty competent with support rolling out for the full Play Store... and through that people have already installed the Windows version of Steam and playable games. The full desktop browser is also very empowering. Overall it's becoming directly equivalent at all the good stuff, it's even Linux under the hood and can co-install full Ubuntu. What it leaves behind allows for mindless security, no upkeep, and performance.

Apple like to think their iPad Pro is the next generation of PCs too -

http://www.macrumors.com/2016/08/01/apple-new-ipad-pro-compu...

Well unless apple releases iPad Pro that can actually run programs instead of "apps" from store then maybe. But it's not the case.

And for Chromebook, I don't think it's even close.

This is obviously anecdotal but I work on a somewhat popular web game (millions of sessions/month despite having a mobile app) and Chrome OS (1.15%) represents less of our sessions than even 3rd place Linux (1.23%). We actually get almost as many people visiting our web game from a mobile device _by mistake_. So to put it lightly, Chromebook has some work to do.

What's the difference between running "apps" and "actually running programs"?

Pokemon Go is an app.*

Visual Studio is an actual program.

* Technically "app" is also a program. But I think people got what I meant.

Pokemon Go is a game.

The point is, I don't see any reason why you can't make productivity programs for iPad or an Android tablet. There are plenty out there.

However, I wouldn't use an IDE on there because I prefer a laptop with a bigger screen and a good keyboard for dev work.

AFAIK it's just hard to do. Imagine porting 3dsMax or Photoshop to run as a mobile/chrome app. I think it would just require too much work.

Trust me, I would love for it to be the case, but I honestly don't see it being that way in the next 5 years minimum.

I'm not sure there's a single task that I've found more convenient to do on a phone than a desktop.

Call people ;P

Also, your PC does not look like the average PC. Think 3-6 years old and filled with spyware.

In general, I think you're right. Were I less paranoid about apps, it's entirely possible that some of them would be more convenient than using my desktop (at this point, I basically cannot trust anything in the Play Store, so bad is the permissions situation). That said, these things are more convenient on a phone or tablet:

- directions & navigation

- reading an ebook on the train

- watching a movie while programming on the desktop

- texting (in fact, it may not be possible)

- using Signal for messages & voice

- tracking my steps in Google Fit

- hailing an Uber

- translating a menu with Google Goggles

That's about all, though. I still prefer my desktop for games, for programming, for creation in general. It's 50-50 between the desktop & a phone or tablet when it comes to browsing the web: the convenience of mobile is nice, but my desktop screen is much nicer.

Taking photos :)

But seriously, the small screen and accelerometers viabilize different kinds of interactions. Some games manage to be fun on mobile, while they would obviously be very dull on desktops. I would not be surprised if there were serious applications exploiting those features too.

And there is the "taking photos" category, where I was only half joking. There's a set of tasks that the desktop can't even handle.

My 8 inch Windows tablet which is not much larger than many phablets and runs a full desktop OS works better and gives me way more control.

Tell me, what category of tasks could it not handle?

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