by Damon Payne
2. August 2011 13:57
I love it when news like this comes out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14370878
This is isntantly jumped on by the anti-Microsoft crowd to indicate you'd have to be stupid to use Internet Explorer, scientific proof that Micro$oft sucks and everything that does not come from Redmond is superior like you've been told all along.
I'm not a statistician, but let me attempt to refute this.
- Last I heard, Windows still has over 90% of the desktop OS market.
- Windows users overwhelmingly stick with IE because they are not tech geeks and IE is already there.
- People who go out of their way to install Chrome/Opera/Firefox tend to be tech geeks of some sort who think those browsers are better (they may very well be better but my Mom has no reason to think so), or are doing software development themselves, or have ideological issues with Microsoft.
- Tech geeks tend to be far above average intelligence.
The overwhelming majority of users, who don't know and don't care, skew the results. I don't think I'm the only one to come to this conclusion but I've seen just enough people actually take this study to seriously mean "If you don't install Chrome your very intelligence is suspect" that I needed to go on record.
Peace.
{Edit: the study was later revealed to be a hoax anyway! http://www.winrumors.com/internet-explorer-users-arent-dumb-study-was-a-hoax }
Subscribe