The battle between Internet browsers got up close and personal after a study using IQ tests found some connections between browsers and user brightness.

IQ tests were performed on 100,000 English speaking Internet users and compared according to the browsers they most often use.

According to the AptiQuant psychometric Consulting Company, on average Internet explorer users are not as bright as users of Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

"It has been suggested that individuals on the lower end of the IQ scale tend to keep using outdated versions of antique web browsers. Because cognitive scores are related to techsavviness, we hypothesized that choice of web browser is related to cognitive ability of an individual," the company said on the website.

Researchers carried out a Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (IV) test on 100,000 people over a period of four weeks. The majority of users landed on the site looking for IQ Tests on search engines.

A significant number of individuals with a low score on the cognitive test were found to be using Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) versions 6.0 to 9.0, which has led the company to believe that there is a connection between IQ of the users and their choice of browsers.

AptiQuant stressed that using IE doesn't mean you have low intelligence. "What it really says is that if you have a low IQ then there are high chances that you use Internet Explorer," said AptiQuant CEO Leonard Howard, the BBC reported.

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University's Statistical Laboratory has treated the findings with skepticism: "They've got IE6 users with an IQ of around eighty. That's borderline deficient, marginally able to cope with the adult world. "I believe these figures are implausibly low - and an insult to IE users," he said.

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