Does anybody know if when using Windows on a computer but not paying for anything windows related: is windows/ Bill Gates profiting from it? Is it worth installing linux as a protest?
Does anybody know if when using Windows on a computer but not paying for anything windows related: is windows/ Bill Gates profiting from it? Is it worth installing linux as a protest?
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.
I think the most windows like desktop environment (DE) is KDE. So I try to limit my windows to Switcher recommends to distros that use KDE by default.
So my recommendations would be:
I would also recommend they do some poking around DistroSea