2017-10-28 16:56:44 (edited by flackers 2017-10-28 17:00:48)

In my case, I'm not suggesting Jaws should be free, but I once paid £650 just to upgrade and add a two year SMA because a few little things didn't work. That is an outrageous amount of money for an upgrade that added very little to the basic functionality of software I'd already paid well over a thousand pounds for at that stage. Can't imagine too many situations that would cause a trained sales person to apologise for the cost of something, but that's what happened. It's an obscene amount for a software upgrade.

2017-10-28 18:29:02

yeah, the fact you need to pay for upgrades is incredibly stupid

I am the blind jedi, I use the force to see. I am the only blind jedi.

2017-10-28 19:02:27

I'm not saying JAWS, or it's major version upgrades, should be free, but honestly, charging people for an upgrade they chose to skip, and will never use because it's now superceeded by a newer version is just plain ridiculous. No other software or hardware company does that, even in the assistive technology space.

If I had just recently gone blind, and needed to choose a screen reader, and knew what I know now, I'd start off with NVDA and probably never look at JAWS.

But things didn't go that way, I learned JAWS first, and have been very happy with it, so I make sure that my SMAs don't lapse so that JAWS only costs me $5 per month to keep up to date.

2017-10-28 20:56:16

I wouldn't have done  the same, due to NVDA's lack of office support, and the fact that I am in school and use microsoft word with jaws.

I am the blind jedi, I use the force to see. I am the only blind jedi.

2017-10-28 22:38:02

The price of JAWS is much too high, considering that NVDA and Narrator are catching up to it like emerging horses on a track. Seriously though, the price of the program, and worse, upgrading it, is the biggest flaw of JAWS. VFO needs to seriously look at the fact that there are suitable alternatives out there at the moment and charge much less for a home user.
I haven't used JAWS primarily for over 8 years, but I as it is the leading Windows screen reader, I keep up with its development from time to time. Lately, there has been a lag behind the pack where new features and support for UIA and Mozilla are concerned.
NVDA's Office support is a work in progress. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook support are not where JAWS is at the moment, but it's getting there, considering how fragmented the community is and the fact that it is a free product in a commercial space.

2017-10-28 22:50:20

As a home user Office support isn't all that important. I wouldn't even have Office, if it wasn't for Microsoft's Home Use program that was available through my last employer. Through it I was able to get Office 2010 Professional for all of $10. Without that, I'd have gone with Open Office, or some other alternative if that wasn't accessible. Truth is, all I need or want is a Good basic word processor and a good basic spreadsheet. I don't need all the other stuff that comes with Office, so Word and Excel are the only things I install.

2017-10-28 22:51:18

I don't understand why people think that NVDA lacks support for MS Office. NVAccess during last years worked mostly on Office support, and it's PowerPoint support in my opinion is even better than JFW's support. If NVDA is little more sluggish with Office, it doesn't mean that Office isn't supported. It is just a bug that needs to be reported to NVAccess's issue tracker on github. I even won't remember the days when I was using JAWS 13 with Office 2007. It was so bad experience, especially with Microsoft Access. The problem was that JAWS didn't work well with croatian version of Office. It didn't wanna read header and footer fields properly, it didn't wanna read combo boxes in MS Access, so what are we talking about. And the same problem occured even later with JAWS 15 and Office 2010. So if something is paid doesn't mean that is better, it's far from that. And yeah, I'm using NVDA at work. Yes, at work! And I'm glad that I do, especially because JAWS is incompatible with Android Studio that I'm using at work every day.

2017-10-29 05:38:12

hi,
Also, I am a student, and office is the program that I use the most. I have not had issues with nvda, in fact, nvda works beautifully with the 365 version of office.

A learning experience is one of those things that say, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."

2017-10-29 05:53:40

I'm not sure about Jaws, but I can say nvda and word 2016 work fine together, I use them all the time.

I did try liber office, but the spellcheck and other options in writer just weren't up to what I needed.
Nvda seems to work fine with outlook too, or at least it does on my lady's machine, though since I've never liked outlook I can't confirm that myself, and I've never really seen need to install the other bits of office, but certainly with the latest version of word and Nvda I've had no complaints.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-10-29 10:25:34 (edited by sito 2017-10-29 10:26:48)

i have to agree that jaws2018 is not really worth to pay for. you don't get anything new that could'nt have been included in a update. that in my opinion is ridicolous that they even call it an upgrade.
the passed upgrades have been good. especially when OCR first came in  and jaws18 actually had good features. new high quality volcaliser voices, possibility to use amazon kindel and other things that made this a really worked out update. it's the first time i've felt that jaws actually has come with something new that really was worth paying for and it became faster too.
it's those kind of updates we want. big updates that solves many buggs and comes with wel worked out features and not upgrades where you only get support for ff and some OCR shit. it's not enough to make someone want to upgrade unless they want full support for ff.
and jaws uses it's own OCR. taht's something i like with NVDA the windows 10 OCR. i so wish jaws could use that instead

2017-10-29 15:15:30

I'm just the opposite, I've had no problems with JAWS, but every time I try to use NVDA I find things it can't or won't do that JAWS does without blinking. That is why I only use NVDA for those games that don't play well with JAWS. For me NVDA will always be an also ran well behind JAWS.

2017-10-29 16:27:31

Agree with orco. Also, trying to compare NVDA to jaws 13 is like comparing something to narrator... Jaws 13 is a complete and utter disaster.

I am the blind jedi, I use the force to see. I am the only blind jedi.

2017-10-29 17:02:19

Hello, one thing I'm noticing after the yesterday's update of Firefox; with JAWS 18 at least, Firefox works considerably more slowly than it used to work in the previous versions. My Firefox version is 56.0.2.

2017-10-29 17:12:31 (edited by flackers 2017-10-29 17:14:02)

I think the trouble with jaws is that because they have to release a new version every year to maintain their revenue stream, they also have to have something to justify it, so changes are being released into the public before they've been properly tested. Then they get fixed over the next year or so via updates. This might be why every other version seems to be a bit of a stinker.
Also I agree with orko, jaws is still worth the 6 UK quid it costs me a month. If NVDA were miles better than jaws, I certainly wouldn't pay 150 quid every couple of years to maintain it. I had NVDA as the sole reader on my old laptop in an effort to really give it a shot at being my main SR, but I never really adjusted to it, and always hankered after a return to jaws. Maybe if I'd used NVDA for years first, and then tried jaws, it would be the other way around, I'll never know. The only way the jaws vs NVDA contest could ever be a fair one would be if jaws were freely available to all regardless of income. Then it would be a true test of which is generally best, not which we respect and which we resent.

2017-10-29 17:21:53 (edited by Orko 2017-10-29 17:34:58)

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate or resent NVDA, far from it, for what it is, a free and open source screen reader, I think it's an amazing product. But when I compare it to JAWS, JAWS wins, hands down. And while I agree that JAWS' initial price is a bit of a bitter pill to swallow, I do not regret spending the money on it in any way.

A couple of years ago I tried Firefox and used it for about a year, but accessibility problems, such as parts of the configuration screens not being accessible, and it's lack of even the most basic integration with Windows, like putting its bookmarks into a file, instead of a favorites folder, was rather annoying, so about a year ago I removed it and haven't missed it one little bit.

I'd consider looking at Chrome, but I've heard that it too has accessibility issues, so I just use what works best, Internet Explorer, and make it a point to be aware of its vulnerabilities. I would love to disable everything Active X because I know of no site that I visit that uses it, except for maybe Windows update. If I knew that Windows update wouldn't be affected I would disable Active X completely because about the only thing anybody seems to do with it is to push crap you don't want at you.

This message is beginning to wander a bit, so I'll quit now before it really goes out into left field.

2017-10-29 17:49:32

The only reason I use chrome is because my internet explorer is version 8 and I can't access most sites, including the audiogames forum with it. However chrome doesn't work with jaws 12, so I have NVDA for it. I can't get internet explorer on windows 7 apparently.

I am the blind jedi, I use the force to see. I am the only blind jedi.

2017-10-29 20:56:38

@Rory, most odd, my lady has a windows 7 machine and the latest version of Ie, ie 11 and  had no problems.
I can't speak about Jaws as my only experience was with a very much older version quite a long while ago, it wasn't positive but then again I only spent an afternoon tinkering and that more for curiosity than a real desire to use the thing (especially with it's price tag).

I used Supernova for many years but I've been just plane disappointed at it's windows 10 support, especially since the screen reader that used to be renowned for reading any and all on screen text back in the xp days now only works with specifically configured bits of windows, and not even all of those (eg windows 10  email). I've got it on this desktop and still run the update from time to time to see where the sub versions of v 16 are going,  I haven't even bothered installing it on my laptop and I don't know if I will or won't bother getting v17, then again with Supernova the most I would have to pay for a version upgrade would be about 200 quid so I can always go back to it in the future if needs be.

I have however been using Nvda all year and have been very happy with it and now consider it my main screen reader.

With browsers I've never liked firefox with it's complications and system slow  and am mainly happy with ie, however it is getting  be a concern that a lot of modern html5 games and sites aren't working with ie. Microsoft should really do their job and update the thing properly, and no, I don't mean Microsoft edge with it's ridiculously silly tabs, endless adverts  and insane layout.

I have considered trying chrome for some of the things ie won't do, though that is another topic.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-10-29 21:20:11

I have internet explorer 11 on win 7. It's XP that won't let you go above IE8. Re respecting or resenting a screen reader: I was thinking more along the lines of people resenting FS than NVAccess. FS has certainly pissed me off a few times in the past. The cost of upgrades, the restrictive licensing, and having tech support issues ignored. I must have told them four times that there's a bug with jaws reading adobe digital editions that started with jaws 15. A problem that means copy protected epubs are no longer readable with jaws, unless you keep a copy of v14 or older, and keep switching just to read a book in ADE. Why they won't address this, or even explain why they aren't fixing it, I do not know. The fact that FS won't fix this problem means I had to buy a DRM stripper, and essentially break the law in order to read purchased epubs.

2017-10-29 21:32:38

I'm running Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 7 Home Premium. The only thing I can't get with Windows 7 is Edge and from everything I've heard, that's probably a good thing.

2017-10-30 07:49:38

The biggest problem with JAWS is that it always has some compatibility issues with new versions of software, and FS needs ages to fix that. That was ten years ago when Vista came out, that is happening again now with Firefox. Microsoft Edge wasn't supported by JAWS until recently, NVDA already supported it months and months before. This is ridiculous for a screen reader that costs a lot of money to not support something that is already supported by it's free alternative. Regarding stability, I even won't talk about JAWS's unstable Sapi 5 driver and how it crashes some tts synths that will never crash with NVDA. Don't even try to say "You know, that never happened to me". If it didn't to you, it happened to me, and that was enough for me to move away from JFW, because NVDA's SAPI5 driver at least never crashed on me or created a stupid buzzing sound like JAWS's did.
The problem is, they didn't work hard enough to fix bugs and support a new software on time, the only important thing is that they take money from people for nothing in return. That's why I've switched to NVDA, because it's at least free, so therefore it's not a problem if it fails somewhere, or if it doesn't support new software on time, although it usually supports new versions of Windows and some other software even before it's released, which is more than nice for a free screen reader. If I'm paying thousand dollars for a screen reader, it needs to be perfect, not good, I said perfect. And JAWS will probably be perfect for 50 years, because in my opinion the last realy stable version of JAWS was 7.0, nothing after that, and I've used it actively until version 13, although I've used 14 and 15 sometimes as well.
And regarding Internet Explorer, well guys I wish you a good luck with browser that is no longer supported by Microsoft, and that will sooner or later have security problems, because they've already replaced IE with Edge.

2017-10-30 12:25:23 (edited by Socheat 2017-10-30 12:27:48)

When I was a Windows user, the browser that I most used were Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. They're both work well for my daily tasks on the Internet. I rarely use Firefox, because I think Firefox is quite slow in my opinion. I only use it for solving captchas. But since the captchas on the internet now has audio in most websites, I never bother to install Firefox on my computer again if I were a Windows usr.

2017-10-30 14:39:48 (edited by flackers 2017-10-30 14:47:06)

I think it'll be the fact that internet explorer is no longer being developed that will eventually cause me to switch to win 10. Think IE will become unusable long before the win 7 OS. That's what happened with XP anyway. But I'll worry about IE not working when it actually happens. And you never know, Chrome might be equally as user-friendly to jaws by that stage, and I'll not miss IE at all. Chrome is definitely the fastest browser I've tried, but like with firefox, there's always some pesky little issue that has me running back to IE. One thing I really don't like about Chrome though is the fact that no matter which boxes I uncheck during installation, it always installs addons to internet explorer. I think this is a pretty big liberty they're taking. They shouldn't mess with other browsers at all. I'm not talking about the google toolbar either, it's some other addon that I'm sure slows IE down a little bit.

2017-10-30 15:16:50

Normally I'd have no problem switching from Internet Explorer to Edge because I know how vulnerable Internet Explorer has always been and will just get worse when Support for Windows 7 & 8 ends in 2020.

But it seems that no matter how much Microsoft talks about making their products accessible, it appears that the whole accessibility team took an extended leave of absence while Edge was being developed. Even Microsoft says that Edge has a very long way to go to become as accessible as Internet Explorer is now.

True and honest accessibility isn't something you tack on as an after thought, it has to be part of the design philosophy from day zero and the ground up. Otherwise it will always look and feel like an after thought rather than a part of the product's design.

2017-10-30 19:19:43

I would like to make something clear as I feel there exists a kind of confusion here.
Certainly there is no question as to why do I need an accessible web browser, but the question seems to be do I need to upgrade to a newer Windows version to get a more accessible, or a new web browser? You can consider this question as a source of your new decision to upgrade to a new Windows version, but it should never, never be Windows 10!
The thing is just being licked into shape, and I see Windows more of doing experiments rather than creating a stable product that people can fall back on. Introduce and brag about a new feature on an upcoming edition of Windows 10, let people "enjoy" it for six months or so, and then take it away in the next edition.
Talking about accessibility of Windows 10 is the part where my nerves get on. The thing is far from anything that could be seen as meeting the accessibility standards that we all want. Microsoft edge isn't reasonably accessible, most of the apps so called modern are accessible with a great deal of work, notifications aren't properly read, that is, sometimes read, sometimes not read automatically, the start menu behaves sluggishly, and Microsoft with its new interface is being more selfish in creating a poorly designed environment at a point where they themselves do not yet meet the accessibility standards. Narrator is no more than a basic screen reader. Thinking about doing a project in Powerpoint with Narrator is a nightmare. I'd  pay someone to do it rather than use Narrator to do the project.

2017-10-30 20:56:12

what are you talking about? crome is perfectly accessible with jaws