Update, Aug. 5: Apparently this study, along with AptiQuant itself, are an elaborate hoax, one that fooled media around the world. Read about how the hoax went down here.People who use Internet Explorer have lower IQs than people who use other browsers like Firefox or Google Chrome, a new study finds.AptiQuant, a Vancouver, B.C., company founded in 2006, administered 101,326 IQ tests to people who visited their website over a four-week period. Researchers hypothesized that since tech-savvy people are typically smarter, those who adopted new browsers in recent years probably had a higher IQ. They were right.”A significant number of individuals with a low score on the cognitive test were found to be using Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) versions 6.0 to 9.0,” the study found. Visitors to AptiQuant’s website arrived via search engines and ads looking to take a free IQ test. The company told them it was collecting some personal information for a study, but didn’t reveal the nature of the study.”The comparison clearly suggests that more people on the higher side of [the] IQ scale have moved away from Internet Explorer in the last five years,” the study says.AptiQuant founder Leonard Howard explained the motivation for the study in an e-mail to Seattle Weekly. “We were just trying to add some features to our website, and found IE 6.0 and 7.0 to be extremely difficult to work with,” he said. “So we thought of doing this study.”Follow The Daily Weekly on Facebook and Twitter.
More Stories From This Author
King County shots fired incidents drop dramatically in 2025
Third-quarter report shows homicides by firearm down 48% from high of 31 in 2021 to 16 so far this year
By
Steve Hunter • November 26, 2025 11:35 am
King County Prosecutor implements 30-day case filing policy
Following an average of 100 days for case-filing decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic, the prosecutor’s office must now make decisions quicker.
By
Joshua Solorzano • October 22, 2025 9:37 am
No Kings rallies set for Oct. 18
Here’s a list of locations in King County.
By Staff reports • October 14, 2025 4:10 pm
