A new study certainly thinks so. Canadian researchers AptiQuant has conducted an IQ study based on Internet browsers, and found Microsoft IE users had the lowest IQ out of the lot.
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And it appears, Chrome, Firefox and Safari users had just “marginally higher” brainpower than average person, i.e over 100.
But users of Camino, Opera and IE with Chrome Frame were the smartest of all, with “exceptionally” higher IQ levels, the study also showed.
However, Microsoft IE browser users were painted as dim, showing IQ scores in the low eighties.
Vancouver based Psychometric consultants, AptiQuant, gave a free online IQ tested to 100,000 people and then plotted the average IQ scores based on the browser on which the test was taken.
The analysts sought to measure the effects of cognitive ability on the choice of web browser.
“It comes out pretty clear that Internet Explorer users scored lower than average on the IQ tests. Chrome, Firefox and Safari users had just a teeny bit higher than average IQ scores,” AptiQuant said, releasing its findings this week.
However, indignant Microsoft IE users have fought back and are threatening to sue AptiQuant, reports indicate.
And it appears its not just IE users that are disputing the results: Cambridge Professor David Spiegelhalter of the University’s Statistical Laboratory is branding the findings “an insult” and says they are flaky to day the least.
“They’ve got IE6 users with an IQ of around eighty. That’s borderline deficient, marginally able to cope with the adult world,” he told the BBC.
“I believe these figures are implausibly low – and an insult to IE users.”
The report also goes on to engage in a scathing criticism of on the of the first ever browsers to hit the web:
“Internet Explorer has traditionally been considered a pain in the back for web developers….millions of man hours are wasted each year to make otherwise perfectly functional websites work in IE, because of its lack of compatibility with web standards.”
“The continuous use of older versions of IE by millions of people around the world has often haunted web developers. It not only makes their job tougher, but has also “pulled back innovation by at least a decade,” the report states.
“Microsoft created a conspiracy with Internet Explorer’s shell integration with Windows Explorer, and making its removal complicated, if not impossible.”
However, it sings the praises of open source browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome that have taken away a large share out of Microsoft’s pie.
“These browsers are not only better in performance than IE, but offer better compatibility with W3C standards.”
Hmm, it certainly seems very odd findings. Although not being a regular IE user anymore, Chrome is starting to bug me as is Google Search, to the point where I can’t find what I am looking for or am redirected elsewhere. (And Google Docs keep crashing out.)
Leonard Howard, CEO of AptiQuant said he has been receiving hate mail from IE users since yesterday.
“I just want to make it clear that the report released by my company did not suggest that if you use IE that means you have a low IQ, but what it really says is that if you have a low IQ then there are high chances that you use Internet Explorer,” he said.
The company did not feel threatened by lawsuit threats because they have all the scientific data and logs to back their claims, he said.
“A win in a court would only give a stamp of approval and more credibility to our report,” Howard 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.