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.)

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:IQ Test?

[Bjarke Roune]

The reason IQ tests normally are all about abstract reasoning is that that gives the most reliable assessment of IQ with the least number of questions. There is no reason an IQ test needs to look like that, it just happens to be the most reliable and time-efficient way to measure IQ.

In a way, any test at all is an IQ test, in that it is nearly impossible to devise any kind of mental test that does not measure IQ to some degree. String a lot of these kinds of semi-IQ tests together in the right way, and you can end up with a reliable IQ test that contains only questions that look nothing like traditional IQ test questions do. The only reason that it is not usually done this way is just that then you need many, many questions, which is a waste of time when only a small number of abstract thinking questions can do the job just as well.

Unanswerable?

[TheSkyIsPurple]

From the site:
Five teenagers are of various heights. Alex is taller than Dennis, who is shorter than Eunice. Chris is shorter than Bob, but taller than Alex. Who among them is the third tallest? [1. Chris 2. Alex 3. Dennis 4. Eunice]

To rewrite:
Alex > Dennis
Dennis < Eunice (but we don't know if Eunice is taller than Alex or not, etc)
Chris < Bob
Chris > Alex.

Smushing these together (and getting all >'s in the same direction), you get:
Bob > Chris > Alex > Dennis
Eunice > Dennis

These are the combinations I came up with that still fit the teenagers relative heights:
Bob > Chris > Alex > Eunice > Dennis
Bob > Chris > Eunice > Alex > Dennis
Bob > Eunice > Chris > Alex > Dennis
Eunice > Bob > Chris > Alex > Dennis

Who is the third tallest?
Well, Alex, Chris or Eunice. (Answers 1, 2, or 4.)

What did I miss?

[Even if I read "who is shorter than Eunice" to mean Alex < Eunice I still end up with 2 of the answers]

Re:Still using safari or IE?

[nbarriga]

So extensibility is your main/only reason for choosing a browser? What about speed, ease of use, % of pages rendered OK, safety? (Yes, I use Opera)

Re:"IQ" test?

[Bill Wong]

even worse than you think. i wrote a short script and went through ~1500 questions and there were only 138 uniques.
it's trivial for anyone to just create a database of answers for that few a number of questions.
i'm already working on writing a bot to take the quiz automatically

Re:Still using safari or IE?

[Herby Sagues]

Actually, the timer function is apparently not working in IE with Vista (which counts as IE over NT). I get the same results if I wait a minute as if I get the answers immediately (which are pretty easy, though just in case I checked my answers were right with reliable sources). That would explain low Windows NT scores. 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.

Re:Unanswerable?

[mwigmani]

This was the best one I got:*

Question 8 of 10
Which is the odd one out: lead, brass, tin, copper?

1). lead
2). aluminum
3). brass
4). copper

* copied verbatim

Re:Lower is better!

[Toonol]

So you're saying that, although it fails as an IQ test, approaching the test intelligently will lead to a better score?

Hmm...

Re:IQ Test?

[c-reus]

Would your opinion be different if the question were about the contents of Quran? Islam has 1.5 billion followers, making it the second popular religion.

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.

Re:IQ Test?

[Das Modell]

I received a question about some character in Winnie the fucking Pooh. I didn't know the answer to this important piece of cultural trivia, so I guess that means I'm stupid. I also liked all the questions where the answer is completely up to personal interpretation, which is something I've seen in other tests too. Intelligence tests, in my experience, are complete bullshit, and this one is no different.

Using knowledge of culture and history to measure intelligence is dubious. If I can't answer some questions about Western culture, but I can answer several questions about Japanese culture (I know a few things), does that make me stupid or intelligent? Is it more "intelligent" to have deep knowledge of one area or broad knowledge of several areas? And so on.

Re:Still using safari or IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a lot of PCs come with both IE and Firefox these days. Most people I know who use Firefox use it because they've "heard" that it's better or more secure than IE, but don't have any idea why that would be. Some have also heard that "ActiveX is bad", but don't understand that Firefox plugins involve running native code in the browser process, with full user privileges, which is more dangerous than ActiveX controls running in IE on Vista (which runs with reduced privileges because of the so-called protected mode). In a way, such users are being lulled into a false sense of security.

At my university, the internal websites are designed for IE, so those of us who are smart enough to understand this either use IE only, or use IE when accessing the university websites, and something else (like Firefox) when accessing others. For those who know how to secure IE (like me), it is easiest to use only IE (and in some ways also safer, since those who use both IE and Firefox are at risk from vulnerabilities in both browsers).

In general, Vista's protected mode is a very good security feature, and Firefox doesn't yet support it (or didn't the last time I looked -- the estimate was that it was still a long way away). For Vista users, I would therefore say that IE is actually the more secure browser, and it is a mistake to use Firefox. For XP users, this is not the case. Firefox, however, does benefit from having a smaller installed base, which means it is a less tempting target, especially for criminals (as opposed to those who simply want to expose vulnerabilities).

I am also suspicious of the claim that 'Unknown' implies Mac. There are a lot of privacy tools for Windows, Linux and others that hide or alter the browser and OS identification strings.

Re:Unanswerable?

[Denial93]

"In Hinduism who is the Creator? [1. Vishnu 2. Brahma 3. Siva 4. Ganesha]" is just as bad. Depending on which Hindu tradition you look at, either of the first three could be "true". And there are sure to be a few guys who think number 4 is correct... somewhere in the chaotic bunch of sects commonly and grossly misunderstood to be a monolithic religion called "Hinduism".

Re:Still using safari or IE?

[aliquis]

More like: IE was included in the OS and Opera cost money / had ads, firefox didn't.

Opera would have been a bigger player than firefox if it wasn't that you had to see the fucking ads in Opera back in the day. Of course people prefer something free over adware/shareware if they the later one aren't much better.

Re:Still using safari or IE?

[God'sDuck]

If they have an IE-only site (like Netflix Watch-Now) I set the homepage on IE to Netflix, and the homepage on Firefox to whatever their homepage was. I tell them "The orange fox is the internet, the blue E is Netflix." Works fine.