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Care to elaborate why? Everything the average person uses in 2024 is browser based. As long as Chrome is there, they won't notice any difference.


You're right to some extent, which is why Chromebooks are fairly popular.

But, if we're talking desktops, I suspect most desktop users want much more than just a browser. Either for gaming, office use, creative use, etc.


Honestly, I'm a huge fan of Chromebooks for this reason. They are secure, easy to setup, and generally have really good battery life.

The keyboards are really bad for a developer, though. Otherwise, I might use them a bit more.


Word Excel Outlook PowerPoint


Writer Calc Thunderbird T̶u̶x̶ ̶P̶a̶i̶n̶t̶ Impress


So a set of barely maintained applications that cannot support modern Hidpi screens that are shipped with almost every midrange laptop (except Thunderbird which is the only passable app in comparison to its alternative).

The rendering of the Office file formats by the LibreOffice is dogshit. Feature parity is a rounding error. LiberOffice UX is completely from last century. There is so many little UX things that MS added which are so out of the league (like live content update from Office 2007!) for LibreOffice and its outdated codebase.

The Office alone can maybe replaced partially in Linux-compatible environments. However the MS Office-integrated prosumer software ecosystem is the thing that keeps people on Windows. Unless Linux people redesign the whole ecosystem to be as accommodating to closed source app ecosystem and find a time machine to replace all the existing Windows ecosystem, nothing will change.


All of it doesn't matter for the average user this subthread is talking about.


You are getting downvoted, which is sad but also a testament of how delusional the fanboys actually are. Not that I don't think doesn't have its uses cases/upsides.

The reality is that even without talking about the UI and various stability/compatibility/performance (oh god) issues there are even some very basic missing functionalities that ones will encounter regularly when doing stuff that is not just low-level administrative filler work.

If one company would decide to invest in developing a decent competitive alternative it could be worthwhile but, in the meantime, most people are better served with browser-based stuff. Either the Google stuff, free Microsoft version or even the newer Proton offering are decent but there are some semi-commercial offerings that can be decent too.

On the surface LibreOffice is all right, but the hard reality is that it is way too much of a PITA to work with for most people to bother unless they really don't have a choice or are forced too for some reason.

The fanboys don't like that reality and would rather deny it instead of working on fixing the issue; which is precisely why it's a lost cause.


I just got off the phone from my aunt who was filling forms in with Adobe Reader, editing word documents sent from her solicitor.

No it's not all in a browser. That's a shitty assumption and one that should not be forced upon anyone.

I always wonder how many people have been fucked over by a helpful relative giving them a Linux install with a browser and telling them to get on with it ...




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