The Smartest Browser and OS

The IQ League maintain a "60 Second IQ Test" online. Interestingly, they correlate the results of this test with a number of statistics available from their server logs. Along with the geographical distinctions like city and country, the referrer and OS/Browser user-agent strings are also mined, to determine the Smartest Browser and OS. Cutting to the chase, the very smartest is Firefox on Unknown (which internal evidence suggests is MacOS-Intel), and the dumbest, as of this writing, is IE on WinNT. Quick! Test out and move the bars on the pretty graph! Can we make Slashdot.org the "Smartest Website in the World?" (It's currently number 2 behind ScienceBlogs.com.)

Comments

Re:Still using safari or IE?

[Darkness404]

That is odd though, I have installed Firefox on many computers when I have done technical work, and most if not all still use IE as their primary browser usually filling it back up with spyware for me to remove again... About the only ways I know how to make people use Firefox is either A) switch Firefox to an IE icon, or B) delete all evidence of IE except for the .EXEs hidden in system folders. I highly, highly doubt that most Windows users using Safari are just the iTunes users, now, I would expect most of the downloads of Safari for Windows to have come from iTunes but downloads usually don't equal use of the browser.

Re:Still using safari or IE?

[dafrazzman]

I would actually be surprised if there was actually any significant correlation between browser use and IQ, given that most computer users use whatever someone else installed on their computers (IT, OEM or some friend). And if you think otherwise, you are probably confusing intelligent with computer savvy. I wouldn't be so doubtful. I'm sure there's a link between critical thinking and tendency to use Firefox over IE.

Assume you have a group of people of relatively moderate computer savviness. They all use IE, and you tell them all about Firefox. Some of them will say "Pssh... whatever" and conclude that IE is both adequate and familiar, making it easy to rationalize not considering a change. Others will note the benefits along with your shining recommendation and consider a switch.

If we conclude from this that the ones who blew it off think less critically (a debatable, but reasonable assumption), we will indeed see more critical thinking people using IE.

It isn't much of a leap then to say that Firefox users are in some way "smarter" than IE users.

If you can't say that, you can at least say that they're more likely to give a hoot about the test and try harder than the others.