No, a new service in Windows 11 is NOT spying on you. No, Linux has NOT suddenly gained 10% market share.
A Windows 11 Service Is Not Spying
A post on X (formerly Twitter) recently claimed that a new service in Windows 11 is a hidden tracking tool that is transmitting data to Microsoft every 15 minutes, with the post quickly attracting more than 110,000 views.
However, the truth of the matter was soon revealed.
Yes, Windows 11 runs a background service called Windows Health and Optimized Experiences, but the service is not new; in fact, it’s been part of Windows 11 for more than a year. And no, it isn’t covertly logging your data and sending it to Microsoft every 15 minutes.
What it actually does is monitor for signs of a sluggish system and only saves diagnostic data locally, on the user’s own PC. And the data it collects never leaves the PC unless the user chooses to submit a report via the Feedback Hub.
To me, this whole situation raises two major concerns:
- That users can so easily believe what’s written in social media posts
- The extent of user dissatisfaction with Microsoft and Windows 11 is such that any post criticizing either or both can so quickly gain traction
Mind you, Microsoft has to accept some of the blame for number 2.
Linux Has Not Gained 10% Market Share
Last week, a post on Reddit’s Linux thread that attracted a host of upvotes claimed that Linux had hit over 10% market share in North America. And the story was even picked up by at least one Tech site.
This goes back to an old complaint of mine about StatCounter, which was the source for the quoted statistics.
Let’s get this straight once and for all: StatCounter has never been set up to ascertain market share; it simply provides a subscriber service for website administrators to monitor and analyze traffic to their own websites.
StatCounter’s methodology is such that its stats simply cannot possibly be used to ascertain any sort of meaningful market share. In fact, the methodology is so far removed from what’s required to ascertain market share that it’s more likely to throw up silly anomalies… which is precisely what it does.
All that, however, does not stop people and tech sites from using StatCounter’s skewed statistics to produce outrageous posts on social media and equally outrageous articles on tech sites.
Simply put, it’s a matter of clickbait trumping accuracy.
BOTTOM LINE:
I’ve already written about clickbait journalism, whereby tech sites sacrifice the truth for the sake of clicks, and if we add in the growing number of clickbait social media posts, the web is fast transforming from the center of information to the center of misinformation.
As always, your thoughts via the comments are most welcome.
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