Are internet explorer users dumb?

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Gurgeh
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Are internet explorer users dumb?

Post by Gurgeh »

What do you think?
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/07/29/ ... hpt=hp_bn7
I think that this is just a trick to get you to update your browser.
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Re: Are internet explorer users dumb?

Post by bilateralrope »

The data consists of a self-selected sample. Which makes me doubt any results derrived from that data.

But it has been enough to trigger a lawsuit:
AptiQuant Threatened With A Lawsuit By Loyal Internet Explorer Users.

AptiQuant, the company that released the report titled ‘Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Browser Usage’ about the relation between an individual’s IQ score and their choice of web browser yesterday, is being threatened with a lawsuit by a group of Internet Explorer users. Internet Explorer users were labelled as the ones having the lowest IQ as compared to other browsers mentioned in the report.

Leonard Howard, the CEO of the company said that he has been receiving hate mail from IE users since yesterday. He said, “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 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.

AptiQuant is a Vancouver, Canada based company that provides tools to corporates to help them measure the mental ability of existing or potential employees. In a report released yesterday, they had claimed that a study done by the company suggested that IE users have the lowest IQ as compared to other browsers.

The full report can be downloaded at: http://www.aptiquant.com/IQ-Browser-AptiQuant-2011.pdf
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Re: Are internet explorer users dumb?

Post by Flagg »

The threatened lawsuit seems to support the findings, though I don't see how choice of web browser is any type of measurement of intelligence. Caring about what others use seems to be a big mark against you though as far as I'm concerned.
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Re: Are internet explorer users dumb?

Post by haard »

Destructionator XIII wrote:
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 tell you at least one group of people who aren't very smart: ApitQuant's web developers. (or perhaps their bosses are making unreasonable demands but meh) Anyone who says they are "highly incompatible with modern web standards" is an incompetent sack of shit.
Well... IE6 is a pain, and still used wherever a webapp that depends on IE6-specific behavior exist. The problem is not so much that an old browser is crap compared to modern ones, but that a lot of still-in-use corporate applications forces people to use it.
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Re: Are internet explorer users dumb?

Post by haard »

Destructionator XIII wrote:How do you define "a pain"? Is it as painful as trying to get any real work done on that useless piece of trash Firefox before version 3.5? Thank God that shit is dead.
A pain as in code needed for a ten-year old browser. IE6 is from before FF 1 - and it sure has aged better than Netscape, Firefox or anything else. What's painful is that it's still alive.
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Re: Are internet explorer users dumb?

Post by Thanas »

Moved to the appropriate forum.
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Re: Are internet explorer users dumb?

Post by El Moose Monstero »

It's a fake!
BBC wrote:Internet Explorer story was bogus

The story claimed that users of internet explorer had a lower IQ than those who opted for other browsers

A story which suggested that users of Internet Explorer have a lower IQ than people who chose other browsers appears to have been an elaborate hoax.

A number of media organisations, including the BBC, reported on the research, put out by Canadian firm ApTiquant.

It later emerged that the company's website was only recently set up and staff images were copied from a legitimate business in Paris.

It is unclear who was behind the stunt.

The story was reported by many high profile organisations including CNN, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and Forbes.

Questions about the authenticity of the story were raised by readers of the BBC website who established that the company which put out the research - ApTiquant - appeared to have only set up its website in the past month.

Thumbnail images of the firm's staff on the website also matched those on the site of French research company Central Test, although many of the names had been changed.

The BBC contacted Central Test who confirmed that they had been made aware of the copy but had no knowledge of ApTiquant or its activities.

Research claims
ApTiquant issued a press release claiming that it had invited 100,000 web users to take IQ tests and matched their results with the type of browser they used.

It also supplied extensive research data.

The results claimed to show that Internet Explorer users were generally of lower intelligence.

The BBC sought alternative views for the original story, including Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University's Statistical Laboratory, who said: "I believe these figures are implausibly low - and an insult to IE users."

No-one on ApTiquant's contact number was available for comment.

Graham Cluley, senior security consultant at Sophos, examined the source material for the BBC after concerns were raised.

"It's obviously 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," he said.

Mr Cluley also looked at the pdf file containing the data that many people had downloaded from a variety of sources and said it did not appear to contain malware.
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