LibreOffice downloads on the rise as users look to avoid subscription costs | The free open-source Microsoft Office alternative is being downloaded by nearly 1 million users a week
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Interest in LibreOffice, the open-source alternative to Microsoft Office, is on the rise, with weekly downloads of its software package close to 1 million a week. That’s the highest download number since 2023.
“We estimate around 200 million [LibreOffice] users, but it’s important to note that we respect users’ privacy and don’t track them, so we can’t say for sure,” said Mike Saunders, an open-source advocate and a deputy to the board of directors at The Document Foundation.
LibreOffice users typically want a straightforward interface, Saunders said. “They don’t want subscriptions, and they don’t want AI being ‘helpful’ by poking its nose into their work — it reminds them of Clippy from the bad old days,” he said.
There are genuine use cases for generative AI tools, but many users prefer to opt-in to it and choose when and where to enable it. “We have zero plans to put AI into LibreOffice. But we understand the value of some AI tools and are encouraging developers to create … extensions that use AI in a responsible way,” Saunders said.
Nice. Maybe now Microsoft will respond by
offering non-subscription optionsinventing a new proprietary industry-standard file format so their bloated ransomware remains mandatory. -
What happened to Openoffice?
Oracle happened.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/423300/why-you-should-ditch-openoffice-and-use-the-free-libreoffice-suite.htmlSeriously, fuck Oracle with a rusty rebar. They already ruined mysql.
mysql -> MariaDB
OpenOffice -> LibreOffice
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Oracle bought and ratfucked it.
I still use it sometimes.
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Syncthing has been so helpful in making me move away from cloud based options. And to think only reason I found out about it and gave it a shot was because I was trying to figure out how to easily sync my non Steam game save files between my Desktop and my Steam Deck. It's been invaluable since then.
Syncthing
That is a very cool project that I'd never heard of. Thanks for sharing!
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Interest in LibreOffice, the open-source alternative to Microsoft Office, is on the rise, with weekly downloads of its software package close to 1 million a week. That’s the highest download number since 2023.
“We estimate around 200 million [LibreOffice] users, but it’s important to note that we respect users’ privacy and don’t track them, so we can’t say for sure,” said Mike Saunders, an open-source advocate and a deputy to the board of directors at The Document Foundation.
LibreOffice users typically want a straightforward interface, Saunders said. “They don’t want subscriptions, and they don’t want AI being ‘helpful’ by poking its nose into their work — it reminds them of Clippy from the bad old days,” he said.
There are genuine use cases for generative AI tools, but many users prefer to opt-in to it and choose when and where to enable it. “We have zero plans to put AI into LibreOffice. But we understand the value of some AI tools and are encouraging developers to create … extensions that use AI in a responsible way,” Saunders said.
And IIIIII helped!
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Linux needs to sound a lot less intimidating for people who don’t really do tech besides the very basics.
Successful propaganda. As if those people were able to install (or configure) Windows if it didn't come preinstalled and with autoupdates...
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Good job! Welcome to Beltalowda
Next up: join the OPA! -
A reference to The Expanse.
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Nice. Maybe now Microsoft will respond by
offering non-subscription optionsinventing a new proprietary industry-standard file format so their bloated ransomware remains mandatory.Fortunately platforms like docs are providing sufficient competition that I don’t think they’d be able to lock it down as effectively as they once could.
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Yeah desktop apps era is back baby. Fuck you cloud.
Woowoo! Cloud has its place and I love it but it's not for literally everything
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people who don’t really do tech besides the very basics
i've been building my own PCs since the 90s and have basic hardware and network certs, and want to try linux, but it seems daunting to me
It isn't, really. As @CosmicTurtle0 pointed out in their response, it's mostly finding alternatives to your apps.
Apropos: fuck mozilla for enshittifying the last viable open source browser alternative
It's the one I have not found an alternative for yet.Other than that: Thunderbird is WAY better than Outlook anyways. Gimp is arguably lacking some features that Photoshop people are used to, but works just fine (albeit takes some getting used to) for non graphic designers. LibreOffice is functioning better than Microsoft Office by a long shot in Writer and Calc - and up to par in Impress (presentations.)
VLC should already be your media player of choice anyways. Element (Matrix) and Telegram desktop applications come with most distros nowadays. Desktop environment of choice is available, from very comfortable to very rudimentary and blazingly fast.Steam works, many many games on steam work (but then again, maybe prefer gog / good old games, as it is not US based).
PDF readers: okular is probably your best bet, digital signatures work fine but the interface for signing a document could be improved a bit.
For my system, that's kind of it - everything else is native Linux stuff anyways
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The hardest part is picking a username and seeing what the name of the app store is on the distro
please don't call it app store, I just threw up a little in my mouth
Package Manager!
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Yeah desktop apps era is back baby. Fuck you cloud.
OnlyOffice is also good - my preferred for the basic Word/Excel type stuff I do.
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Woowoo! Cloud has its place and I love it but it's not for literally everything
I like my personal cloud.
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Linux needs to sound a lot less intimidating for people who don’t really do tech besides the very basics.
Exactly. I'm really interested in running Linux but it would be more of something interesting to try when I have time rather than an actual OS change.
The biggest issue for me is I'm a photographer and I depend on Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, etc. I know there are open source alternatives, but from what I've seen they are far behind adobe.
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So here’s a single data point for you, in a good couple months (for money reasons) I was gonna switch over to Bazzite or another distro if it came preinstalled
So with a sample size of 1 we know 100% of people you’ve found are switching to linux
for money reasons
Should we tell them Linux is free?
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for money reasons
Should we tell them Linux is free?
Well there’s the small matter of the new computer
But oh NOW you tell me I don’t need to wire $600 to a random person
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Linux needs to sound a lot less intimidating for people who don’t really do tech besides the very basics.
How about this: I'll offer installation support and free tech support for three months to the first 20 people that ask. Free of charge. I only have three conditions:
- You pick from a handful of distros I'm willing to support - Debian, Fedora, openSUSE Leap
- You donate any amount of money to any FOSS project or contribute something to a FOSS project
- I reserve the right to not help get certain Windows software working, like anything Adobe
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I like my personal cloud.
I'm hoping to set one up later this year. I have an old laptop that has good enough specs to run it from my research - I just need to get everything off of it and swamp windows for Linux! Never did a Linux install so I'm excited.
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Well there’s the small matter of the new computer
But oh NOW you tell me I don’t need to wire $600 to a random person
You can dual boot on pretty much whatever you have, though I recommend buying a separate drive for Linux for minimum headaches.
But yeah, I get it. Linux will be there when you're ready.
