When I saw the headline, my first thought was, “of course they are.” After all, Windows is the most popular operating system and comes preinstalled on just about all of the cheapest computers and Internet Explorer is the default web browser. So if you walk into a store and plop down $400 then go home and turn on the computer you will be greeted with Microsoft Windows and unless you download and install another web browser you will be using Internet Explorer. This would explain IE’s 42% market share.

On my own computers I haven’t used Internet Explorer for more than downloading another browser or logging into the time card system for work (which unfortunately only works on IE 8) since probably 2003 and since switching to Linux I am unable to use IE unless I want a marginally functional installation of IE6 running in WINE or I want to run Windows in a Virtual Machine.

Since the IQ scores by browser is even broken down by version, people use IE 6, 7, 9, and 8 respectively in order of increasing IQ. This would also make since considering that IE 6 would be the default for XP, 7 for Vista, and 8 for Windows 7. Windows XP users who are running IE 7 at least know how to update their system, they just probably haven’t done it in a while. I could even understand IE 8 users being smarter than IE 9 since everybody knows that anything new that Microsoft releases is as buggy as the Bayou and you need to wait until at least version x.1 or a service pack.

Then I decided to check the browser share for my reader base. It turns out that 24.35% of the visitors to this site use Internet Explorer. Since I know you guys must all be quite smart, it couldn’t be that IE users are all a bunch of idiots. Let’s look at some more details of this study:

• It was performed by AptiQuant, a Canadian psychometric consulting company.
• The sample size was 100,000 people.
• They lured people in with a free IQ test.

This would have more weight to it if the study was performed by a university, not a for profit corporation. The sample size is rather large but it’s misleading. I’m sure they offered the IQ test using advertising on various sites. Considering the prevalence of ad blocking and script blogging plugins that would have narrowed the sample down to those who aren’t so worried about web security and who would have been lured into a free IQ test. The validity of the IQ scores can also be called into question due to the unscientific nature of a self administered online test.

In short, just based on methodology this is a very weak study. It’s like testing the fitness of a few wildebeest herds based on the ones you can easily catch. A poor, non-representative sample, no matter the size, will not yield high quality results.

The best web browser choice, much like operating system choice, is a matter of what works best for you. Some websites display best in Internet Explorer and if your favorite websites fall into that category then it’s probably the best web browser for your uses. For people running Windows 7, using either IE 8 or 9 could easily give them the best user experience due to integration with the OS and other applications.

I use Chromium (the open source base of Google Chrome) and the decision to do so was based on browser performance and tab management. Firefox has come a long ways and with version 5 it is a good contender for my use, but at this point Chromium is just a little more polished, yes I am talking about aesthetics. When you’re using the aesthetically pleasing KDE Plasma Shell, applications that don’t blend in with a comparable theme and smoothness, just don’t look right.

The final objection I have to this poorly done study is the standard correlation does not equal causation. In their sample, the stupidest people (according to their test) used IE, this does not mean that people use IE because they are stupid, it just means that the stupidest people who click on advertisements offering free IQ tests (sounds like a stupid group to begin with to me) use Internet Explorer.

For the next stupid study, I would like to see the breakdown of religious and political affiliation by browser usage.

(Via CNET News)