Buy European

Personally, I don't think switching your OS "as a protest" is a good idea. Bill Gates is so obscenely wealthy that your protest will have literally zero impact. Not "very small" impact; actually zero. As in, the whole world could abandon all Microsoft products and Bill Gates would still be able to live exactly as he did before. It's not worth your mental health to let his actions have that level of control over you.

All that said, you should switch to Linux because it's a better OS (as long as it does what you need).

They still profit. Windows is increasingly an ad platform with ads delivered directly to your start menu.

You also get included in their user statistics when they report such things publicy, and therefore help toward selling their value as an investment.

ZorinOS, stylish, modern and user-friendly check it out!

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i just installed mint on my laptop and it runs way better than it ever ran with windows 11 plus it's super user friendly :)

Linux is worth it as the greatest protest to everything that is wrong with technology.

The secret word is "telemetrics". Microsoft will track your actions and sells the data, just like Google or Apple.

The amount of data Windows and microsoft in general collect is worth billions and going straight to the hands of the US govt. for a price obviously, so yes they are profiting from your use regardless of whether you pay for it or not.

During a public talk at the University of Washington in 1998, Microsoft founder Bill Gates admitted, "Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

Source

Not necessarily as a protest, but the answer is always hard yes.

Windows is not making money on sales only. They collect data and then they sell them to data brokers. Those brokers then sell the data to advertisement agencies to serve you adds. Even if you buy just one item based on those adds (which may be unconscious choice) you have already paid. Even if you buy nothing based on adds, microsoft already got the money.

I do recommend linux but be aware of letting people to push you into something you don't want to do. Linux community can be very enthusiastic 😅. Top three to recommend are Linux Mint (most windows like design), Fedora (most stable) and Pop OS (best with nvidia gpu). Only one of these is favorite of mine but I will not tell you which, just search for them, look at screenshots and you will see what suits you.

The way I see it, using these software, even without paying anything and even if you could somehow shield your data from telemetry, strengthens their hegemony.

Growing the pool of users in Open Source project, talking about them, maybe filing bug reports if needed, helps make them more viable. The growing user count makes developers more enticed to release software for these platforms.

I don't think Microsoft's hegemony suffers a lot from losing a user .. But they do suffer slightly more from Linux gaining a user.

It is worth installing GNU/Linux.

Kind of funny the link you’re sharing is msn (microsoft owned)

Based on your country microsoft will run a varying amount of ads in the OS, and as mentioned by other users: telemetry.

Is it worth installing Linux as a protest? Depends. Switching to Linux will always come with a little bit of tinkering involved. So the answer depends on your willingness to spend some time to learn a new OS. But it offers you the opportunity to gain some control over your machine, privacy and learn some things.

One thing to consider is market share. While one user switching from Windows to Linux won't affect it one bit, but if, say, half of European Windows users would do the switch, that would cause a meaningful dent to Windows' market share. So, while you won't directly affect that number, you do belong to some circles of people. By making the switch, you would act as an example for others and bring some knowledge and expertise on the topic (like, how easy it was, what are the downsides/upsides...). If your example leads to other people do the switch, those people also belong to some circles of peoples, and so on. It might be enough to start a small avalanche that could grow bigger and bigger.

Old versions of windows 10 will stop getting security updates later this year (October? ) so you will be running an insecure system or be supporting windows 11.

So yes, it is worth installing Linux

If you're using Windows, you've paid for it one way or another.

I switched to Linux this month (finally, couple months in planning). Switch, donate, spread the word, make it easier for people to switch. Gaming has been very simple, the biggest hurdle being the drivers which most distros can auto handle I think.

I switched to Linux and it was an improvement for me, but of course it depends on what you use your pc for.

Zorin is also a very beginner friendly distro and I believe the developers are Irish.