this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
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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 (www.computerworld.com)
submitted 4 weeks ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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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.

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[–] venotic@kbin.melroy.org 55 points 4 weeks ago (49 children)

Took them long enough.

Now how long will it take them to try Linux?

[–] aceshigh@lemmy.world 18 points 4 weeks ago (29 children)

Linux needs to sound a lot less intimidating for people who don’t really do tech besides the very basics.

[–] solsangraal@lemmy.zip 15 points 4 weeks ago (17 children)

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

[–] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

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 :)

[–] azalty@jlai.lu 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Element 🤢

Telegram 🤢

[–] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

I know. But better than using products from fascists...

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