Internet Explorer Users Deemed 'Dumbest': Study

Will you still use your browser if its users are deemed as "dumbest"?

A study suggests that users of Internet Explorer have the lower IQ than the users of other Web browsers. And the crude report has even provoked some IE users to threaten legal action.

AptiQuant, a Vancouver-based Web consulting company, tested the iQ of over 100,000 participants, while monitoring the types of the browsers they used to take the test.

The results showed that Internet Explorer users scored lower than average, while Camino, Opera, and IE with Chrome Frame (a plug-in designed to let users view emerging HTML5 content) users had "exceptionally higher levels," and Chrome, Firefox and Safari users had "just teeny bit higher" than average IQ levels.

Rather than a scientific reason, the results can be explained by the self-selection that occurred among the test-takers. The pool of test-takers were not scientifically selected, but instead voluntarily chose to take the test on the IQ test's website through searches and online ads. The test was offered to visitors from USA, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, and the results from visitors under the age of 16 were not included in the study.

The numbers have nothing to do with the inherent nature of Internet Explorer, but it has everything to do with the correlation between tech-savviness and IQ.

Tech-savvy individuals are more likely to upgrade and change their software, including their Internet browsers.

The users of IE, the default browser for Windows-based computers, could be more resistant to upgrade of their browsers.

While ten years ago, Internet Explorer owned an overwhelming majority of the browser market share, browsers like the Google Chrome, Firefox, and Opera have emerged as alternatives.

Internet users who switched/upgraded to these Internet Explorer alternatives tend to be more tech-savvy than the average Internet population. Even within different version of Internet Explorer, the users who had more upgraded versions were more intelligent than users who had old versions.

"In addition, the results were compared to another unreleased study of a similar nature undertaken in year 2006. The comparison clearly suggests that more people on the higher side of IQ scale have moved away from Internet Explorer in the last 5 years," said the report from AptiQuant.

Pointing out that there is a great difficulty in making otherwise perfectly functional websites work in IE, AptiQuant stated that the continuous use of older versions of IE by millions of people around the world has often haunted web developers.

"This latest report about the intelligence levels of IE users is expected to create a storm, AptiQuant added.