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Scientific Proof: IE Users Are Stupid

But is IE the only indicator?


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EVERYWHERE (Rixstep) — There's finally absolute proof of what most people have suspected all along: users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer are stupid. And if users of other browsers are stupid too, then users of Internet Explorer are more stupid. This is now an established Scientific Fact™.

A study by AptiQuant of Vancouver entitled 'Intelligent Quotient and Browser Usage: Measuring the Effects of Cognitive Ability on the Choice of Web Browser' from 26 July 2011 makes it painfully clear there's one group of surfers in particular holding things up on the information highways.

Users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

AptiQuant offered a cheesy IQ test at their website and then correlated results with info sniffed from surfers' browsers. The findings were unequivocal: Internet Explorer users are stupid.


  Internet Explorer users are stupid: scientific proof.

The above graph would indicate that as of 2011, users of IE6 are the lowest of the low with IQs diving down to sub-primate ranges. Even users of IE8 can't reach the median value of 100.

Firefox users just make the cut, Chrome users are a wee bit sharper still, and Safari a bit more so. After that, the histograms get funky with the top three contenders being IE with 'Chrome Frame', Camino, and Opera.

[Something's got to be wrong there. Running 'Chrome Frame' with IE indicates use of Windows, and it's been proven long ago that users of Microsoft Windows are incredibly stupid. Camino is a nearly nonexistent browser alternative. And Opera users are the biggest fools in the Universe™. Whatever.]

Skewed?

Of course there can be many factors skewing the results. One has to take into account that not everyone will want to take a stupid online IQ test. Smarter surfers won't be bothered - they already know how smart they are, and they already know how silly and unscientific such 'come ons' usually are.

Then too, surfers can't always choose the browser they use. People using Firefox and Chrome, for example, will always have to make that extra effort to not use their default browser and download the browser of their choice. Whilst users of any version of Internet Explorer are going to be stuck using the one that came with their 'operating system'.

It's not like someone takes delivery of an IBM mainframe and then blurts out 'Wow - can that thing access the Internet? Does it come with Internet Explorer?'


  IBM's fabulous new zEnterprise mainframe with z196 processors. Unfortunately there's no support for Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer's a key component in Microsoft's long term strategy for world destruction. Bill Gates got the original IE code from Spyglass Corporation - for free. He promised to pay them royalties on every copy he sold. He never told them he had no plans to sell the product, only package it for free with his operating systems.

Microsoft's crack software engineers got to work and Bill Gates bled an estimated $5 billion for what the product is today. Yet for the longest time, the product stagnated. Bill wasn't interested in making a 'best of breed' product - all he wanted to do was keep indy developers off Windows.

It wasn't until the reemergence of Netscape as Firefox that he got interested again.

Internet Explorer is the bane of web administrators everywhere. Because Microsoft spent so much time trying to corrupt open standards, they can't get back to them any longer.

Microsoft Internet Explorer is a mess and should be banned from use. Several European governments have admonished their citizenries to not use it. Security experts and concerned netizens everywhere have been saying the same thing for years.

To get totally owned, you need not only a crappy operating system. You also need a portal that lets everybody in. Microsoft Internet Explorer - through all versions - fits the bill perfectly.

And to think the IE code base was once the same as Netscape Navigator's. Or close enough. How things can change.

Postscript: Hoax?

BBC news are now claiming the story is a hoax. But the 'experts' the BBC call in to check out the story are almost dumber than the IE users who were rightfully roasted. CNN, Forbes, the Mail, and the Telegraph all reported on it.

BBC readers protested and checked the ICANN records for AptiQuant.

Record expires on 2012/07/14 UTC
Record created on 2011/07/14 UTC


The AptiQuant site also seems to have borrowed imagery from the site of a French research company. The BBC contacted the French company who claimed they'd already been informed of the situation but were not familiar with AptiQuant.

All of which doesn't show the test doesn't exist and IE users aren't stupid.

Now the BBC pull in the 'big guns', first a professor from a stats lab on the Granta and then - that's a surprise. The stats professor fells the memorable:

'I believe these figures are implausibly low - and an insult to IE users.'

Then the BBC dig to the bottom of the barrel and pull out - Graham Clueless!

'It's very easy to create a bogus site like this - as all phishers know it's easy to rip off someone else's webpages and pictures.'

Which again doesn't prove a thing. Only that stats professors and Graham probably both still use IE.

Note as well that the extraordinarily dumb are often the obnoxiously loud - a group of IE eejits had already threatened to sue AptiQuant for insinuating they were stupid.

Of course that could be a part of the hoax too - but seriously: who cares? Microsoft's IE is a mess, should not be allowed online, and the rest of the motorists on the information highways don't need scientific surveys to know IE users are stupid.

Postscript 2: Yes Hoax

'This was all meant to be a lighthearted joke', reads the AptiQuant site today.

'We got this idea when adding some features to our comparison shopping website. We found out that IE6 was highly incompatible with web standards. IE7 and IE8, though better than IE6, are still incompatible with not only with the standards but with each other too.'

They found out only now? Wet behind the ears a bit, are we?

But that's still only the pain IE puts web developers through.

See Also
AptiQuant: Internet Explorer Study Was Indeed A Hoax
AptiQuant: Report: Intelligent Quotient and Browser Usage (PDF)
AptiQuant: AptiQuant Threatened With Lawsuit By Loyal Internet Explorer Users
AptiQuant: Is Internet Explorer for the Dumb? A New Study Suggests Exactly That

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