I don't understand this. You can open the "App Store" and search and download programs. If, for some inexplicable reason, you don't want to use the Software Center, you can open a terminal and type "apt install [name]".
Surely this is easier than installing a program on Windows. What exactly is your issue?
With installer:
- Download installer
- execute installer by double clicking on it
- Download .exe
- (Optional) Drag'n'drop .exe to some random folder
- Right click .exe and select "Create desktop shortcut"
And there's the dreadful download pages with ads that look like download buttons, which are more obvious than the real one.
Also, don't forget to inspect every option of the installer to ensure you're not allowing the installation of bundled adware, toolbars, and search page hijackers. And these are sometimes bundled by the distributor.
Every mainstream Linux distro has an "app store"-like GUI application, where you click install and it installs. Click uninstall, and it uninstalls. You should try it - you'll be impressed.
I'm not saying the approach is superior in all points, I'm pointing out how much more intuitive it is for the average person.
And I was specifically talking about software that's not in a pre-installed repository. The different GUI app stores are pretty much equally easy to use.
- Open browser - Type program name - Navigate maze of adware, crapware, and ad-ridden websites, download the stuff you want from "softpedia" or a similar dodgy website; somehow miraculously download the actual software instead of a virus. - Open .exe - Navigate installer
While in Ubuntu/Linux Mint:
- Open the software center - Type program name - Click Install
See?
You've presented the worst case scenario for windows and the best case scenario for linux.
A recent example of one of my installation experience for a certain application:
- Download tar.gz file from official website
- Move to appropriate installation folder
- Extract files from archive
- Look at readme contained within for further instructions
- Give execute permissions to the install script
- Execute install script
- Copy location of app launch script and create shortcut
- Download icon from google image search and add that to the shortcut so it looks right
A lot of steps required the googling how to do it and/or using the command line. Would normal users go through this? Would they even be able to in some cases? It's been claimed anybody who needs special software is already advanced enough to know how to do this. Ok, maybe, but I also don't want to have to, it's a pain.
Admittedly what I outlined is not the normal case of installing an app. Usually it is very easy with the software center. You can't hand wave away the shitty experience for anything that's not there though. Even with the technical knowledge to get it done, who wants to? Installing the same program for Windows would have required downloading the .exe from the official site and running it.
If you're at the point where you're downloading software that isn't in the repo, and their packages don't create a shortcut, then you're at the level where you can figure out how to do it yourself.