Browser brains!

[Gob]

A new survey suggests that IE users are the dumbest of the dumb.

By Robert X. Cringely, Infoworld Aug 2, 2011 8:20 am

It's a question I've often asked myself: Why would anyone in their right mind continue to use Internet Explorer when so many better and free options are available? Now we have an answer, of sorts.

Vancouver-based testing firm AptiQuant Psychometric recently polled more than 100,000 English-speaking adults in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australasia. They were asked what version of browser they used, then asked to take a standard IQ test.

The results: People who use Opera are most likely brainiacs; those who prefer Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Camino are, while not exactly Einstein, still smarter than your average bear; and those who use any flavor of Internet Explorer probably could not find their mouse with both hands and need help tying their shoes.

According to AptiQuant, IQs for IE users ranged from barely above 80 (for IE6) to about 95 (for IE8); the IQ of your average schmoe is 100. Even the smartest IE users are most likely dumber on average than somebody you happened to run into at Wal-Mart.

Worse, the average IQ for IE users has dropped by roughly 20 percent since AptiQuant's previous survey in 2006. Either IE users are getting dimmer each year or all the smart ones left for better options.

(For the record, I stopped using IE as my regular browser a few days after Firefox 1.0 came out. That was in late 2004. I've felt smarter ever since.)

One bright point for Microsofties: People who use IE with a Chrome frame plug-in are among the best and brightest. AptiQuant doesn't say how many people that group comprises, but I'd be surprised if it were more than a handful.

As you might imagine, people who hate Microsoft (and in particular IE) are having a field day with this little factoid. Microsoft fanboys? Somewhat less sanguine.

[Howard] further went on to say that the company did not feel threatened at all by the lawsuit threats because they have all the scientific data and logs to back their claims. "A win in a court would only give a stamp of approval and more credibility to our report," he quipped.

The company spokesman said that they are really surprised by the unexpected attention that their study got. He said that the company first thought of doing this study when they were trying to add some new features to the website and found IE versions 6.0 and 7.0 extremely difficult to work with.

I can totally see the genesis of this survey: "What kind of moron would use this infernal browser? Let's find out."

To be fair, what this report really means is that people who buy a computer and never think to upgrade or switch browsers tend to be dumber than your average geek. Most of them probably aren't even aware of a browser being something separate from the Internet or the Google, for that matter. They turn the thing on, they type something into the search window, they click. And that's as much brain matter as they're willing to devote to it.

If all computers shipped with Chrome or Firefox as the default browser, they might fill the bottom spot just as easily as IE does.

A more reasonable experiment: Set a bunch of people loose in a room filled with computers, make them choose a browser from a drop-down list, then measure their IQs. I bet the results would skew much closer to the mean.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/237052/j ... users.html

Firefox; with a couple of plug-ins and re-skinned and persona'd here.

[Crackpot]

IE at work (no other choice) Safari at home

[Timster]

"Firefox; with a couple of plug-ins and re-skinned and persona'd* here."

Ditto!


* With a wolf theme, of course. (And a nod to the Gob for pointing me in the right direction several years ago.)

[thestoat]

FF got a bit too bloaty for me so I use Chrome (on Windoze, Mac and Linux). Got some nice features. FF4 is now out and looks cool - I may switch back at some stage but at the moment Chrome hasn't done enough to piss me off.

(NEVER IE - waste of electrons)

[dales]

What's a "browser"?

One may deduce what I use.

[Liberty1]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14389430

[dales]

Here's NPR's take:

August 3, 2011


It turns out the ones with a below average IQ are a number of people in the news media — including us — who were fooled by an elaborate hoax that claimed users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser were slow. We fell for it and so did others like the BBC, CNN, Forbes as well as the IT publication The Register, which we quoted.

The BBC reports that AptiQuant, the "company" that put out the study, had only recently set up its website and some of the staff images on the site were copied from a business in Paris, which denied any connection with AptiQuant.

NPR's attempts to contact AptiQuant have been unsuccessful.

In a Wired piece today, the magazine points out that if you looked at the data carefully, it doesn't add up. First of all, in a chart provided by the company, IE users have an IQ of 80, which is below average, yet Opera users were given a superior IQ of about 150. In an interview with the BBC, Cambridge statistician David Spiegelhalter noted something smelled fishy, saying "these figures are implausibly low – and an insult to IE users."

Also, Wired points out, the street address printed on AptiQuant's study is in "middle of an intersection in downtown Vancouver." A quick search on Google Street View would have a yielded a parking lot, a general store, a cafe or a bookstore, not a "psychometric consulting company."

In its story today, CNN spoke to Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with web security firm Sophos, who said he thought the hoax might be "performance art," or come from a "mischief maker who gets a laugh out of all of this."

So with egg on our face, we say sorry to all the Internet Explorer users we offended out there.

[thestoat]

I thought it was brilliant. Top stuff.

[Gob]

Excellent bit of scamming!