2017-11-09 07:09:17 (edited by brad 2017-11-09 07:23:59)

Hi.


@BlindJedi.


I've used JAWS for about 12 years and then, once I found out about NVDA and the fact that it was free, I didn't use JAWS anymore. I highly doubt I'll start using JAWS again.


NVDA is free, not because it doesn't have all the things JAWS has, but because the people who made it were tired of screen reading software costing so much when a sighted person uses their computer for free.


I've not used JAWS in a long time so could be wrong about this but as far as I know, NVDA and jaws almost have the same amount of features.

I'm gone for real :)

2017-11-09 07:13:35

brad wrote:

Hi.

@BlindJedi. I've used JAWS for about 12 years and then, once I found out about NVDA and the fact that it was free, I didn't use JAWS anymore. I highly doubt I'll start using JAWS again.


NVDA is free, not because it doesn't have all the things JAWS has, but because the people who made it were tired of screen reading software costing so much when a sighted person uses their computer for free.


I've not used JAWS in a long time so could be wrong about this but as far as I know, NVDA and jaws almost have the same amount of features.

when NVDA gets smart navigation and better web browsing let me know and I will use it for other things other than stw.

2017-11-09 07:22:56

Hi.


@JimmyDub.


Internet browsing with NVDA has given me no problems. I've been using it for over  4 years now.


It works fine with Firefox, Chrome and even Edge.


I'm not sure what smart navigation is, so can't comment on that.

I'm gone for real :)

2017-11-09 07:28:26

turtlepower17 wrote:

I suppose you encourage the piracy of JAWS, then? Because actually, NVDA was created so that people who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford the steep price tag of all commercial screen readers which were available at the time, could have a free and yes, open source option. It is beyond ignorant to assume that NVDA was only created so that the developers could ride on the coattails of its predecessors.

It's true that NVDA does have many features which are found in JAWS. But so does Window Eyes. Never mind that it's deprecated for a moment. Think back to the lawsuit that FS had against GW Micro, and the bitter rivalry that they used to have. Also, who says that creating add-ons which emulate popular features is a bad thing? If you back people into a corner, and force them to perform illegal activities just so they can have the same rights as everyone else who uses a computer, that's not fairness. That's disgusting.

lol a lot of people that use jaws know that half the NVDA addons made to do things jaws can already do, they're not as good as the real thing. also jaws had half these features like smart navigation and the system tray menus and all that for 10 years or more and NVDA has yet to be able to do better or even try to add that. lets not go into the rest of what I wanted to say here, but I will say that NVDA is only good for one thing. audiogames. trust me if rtr and a few others worked with jaws, NVDA would probably not be on this pc. the only thing NVDA has going for it is that windows 10 OCR. that thing is awesome.

2017-11-09 07:30:05

BlindJedi wrote:

NVDA is just a knock off of jaws. Its free because it doesn't have all the things jaws has, and its open source so that people can create things that jaws has so they don't miss out on its features.

and again, you are 100% right.

2017-11-09 07:34:03

Hahaha, this topic got interesting quick! Anyway, I have noticed the tabbing thing, when it comes to header bars. It's kinda meh, but not that big a deal.

"Actually, they're just super-advanced holograms created for the sole purpose of enriching a children's cardgame."

2017-11-09 07:40:39

Nah. Who actually needs the system tray list anyway? You can just hit Windows b, which is not a screen reader specific shortcut, and scroll through the available icons. Also, at least you can pick and choose which features you want in NVDA to a point. Many of the add-ons, which add features which you say should only be available in JAWS, can be installed separately. For example, I want nothing to do with Research It. That is a stupid feature which should not be included in JAWS by default, not least because its various components break constantly. If the developers at NV Access shoved that feature into NVDA without consent from its user base, you bet your ass there would be a huge backlash, and rightfully so. But if somebody created an add-on which provided that functionality, some people would love it, some would hate it, and most would be indifferent. That's the nature of add-ons, and why they're great, because functionality that really should be optional, is left up to the user to decide whether it's necessary for their particular needs or not. OCR is a great example, actually, because while it's included by default now for those who are using Windows 10, there's also nothing stopping people from using the original OCR add-on. Try stripping the OCR components, which take up tons more space, I might add, from JAWS. Have fun with that.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2017-11-09 07:48:57

Hi.

@JimmyDub.

You can get an addon for NVDA and the system tray.

https://addons.nvda-project.org/addons/ … st.en.html

I'm gone for real :)

2017-11-10 04:26:56

yup forgot about that addon. was giving me problems on windows 7, seems to work ok on 10 though.

2017-11-10 07:05:50

Turtal power, you do know that if you really hate something jaws has, then just don't use it? Its not like your forced to use anything it has.

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

2017-11-10 07:42:42

When you're talking about software, though, features you don't use take up disk space you could be using for something else. This isn't as big a deal as it was just 10 years ago, but judging by how everything seems to be ballooning like crazy, yeah, I'm all for having light-and-modular options. Unless it's programming we're talking about tongue. Scavenger hunts and building anthills or whatever new and manditory thing you have to figure out without being told and this library depends on this other library and we didn't tell you and gah... But in the general case, yeah, messenger and skype and Jaws and any major app you care to name could easily lose 75-90% of their weight and I would lose nothing.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2017-11-10 10:07:23

Hi people, to some who are saying like, nvda is not as good, delete it and blah blah blah, you know what? we have another people that hate jaws soo much too, and that people that like jaws just want to get proud that they are bullshitting at NVDA that another people do on there all cute and lovely jaws.

2017-11-10 16:34:20

Hi.
Come on, guys! Why are we having another flame war between different screen reader users? Isn't it like children in the playground playing war and actually being all friends?
Or actually it might be just too obvious, that those, who have payed for something are somewhat bitter about free and sometimes even better alternatives and just need to feel better about their decision by bashing other choices.
I have been on Jaws between 2004-2011, when my pc died and so I switched to NVDA fulltime since 2012, because I decided just not to upgrade my already then old Jaws 5.1. So I use NVDA on a dayly basis for everything: surfing the web, reading documents and of course making my music. Yep, every screen reader behaves differently to the other one in different places, but most of the time - not always, but most of the times, there are ways to get around nasty traps and seemingly unusable stuff, unless it's really made so, that none of the screen readers copes at all.
Having read so many of similar discussions, it's even interesting just to understand, why they take place. I'm not talking about just describing problems and difficulties using different products and solutions, but about this underlying bitterness between users of different products. Of course I totally agree, that Jaws is waaay too overpriced and those, who chose or are forced to pay, are not in good hands, but does it really give them the right to disregard others like that? I really don't think so.
So yeah, for some Jaws, for others NVDA and everything else in between. Hell - even Narrator becomes more and more something of a screen reader, though obviously not a fully featured one. So shall we at least try to break out of this thinking pattern for once? Patterns are good, because they repeat and thus can become a source of security, but even as a persone being more than probably on the spectrum, I should agree, that some of these patterns can really be disfunctional and hindering by nature.

2017-11-10 19:56:33

Thumbs up mftd, you said pretty much what I would've done as a moderator, (indeed I'm going to need to go and moderate the other topic lol).

I personally used supernova for 17 years up until last January, when I found their policy of "support the bits of Windows 10 we like"  to be the direct opposite of their ability to cope with anything xp could throw at them (and yes, I was using xp for longer than I should've done but as I was getting married in 2016 computers weren't really on my mind).

So I switched to Nvda full time and haven't been disappointed.

Every screen reader has it's quirks as you said, and while rational discussion of good and bad points can be interesting, going into a playground type "my gang's better than your gang" really won't be of much use to anyone.

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.)

2017-11-10 20:42:56

Hi.

I completely agree with Dark and ManFromTheDark.

Discussion is good, but a my screen reader is better than your screen reader argument helps no one.

I'm gone for real :)

2017-11-10 21:08:37

I want to throw my hat in with the team of the Dark, but after 3 it starts to look like another gang. That, and coming up with a name for the group defined by Man of the Dark and Dark himself is a bit harder than it should be. The DA? The Dark One is bound at Sheyol Gul, so that's out. The Dark Legion is busy tending the Chaos Dimension. And I remember something about the Armies of Darkness being of dubious repute. Dark... Collar? You know, on those light-obscuring cloaks, capes, and carnigons?
So yeah. They of the Dark Collars have the right of it.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2017-11-10 23:40:59

Of course no one has to use any feature of any software that they don't want to. I hoped that would be obvious.

K said it best, though. Less is usually more when it comes to using any program, and screen readers should be no exception. That's why I like NVDA, because I get to choose, up to a point, and a pretty flexible one at that, which features I want and which I don't. So sure, I got a little unnecessarily snippy in my other posts, but that was because I don't think it's right or productive to shit on a product just because it's free, because it's been very helpful to lots of people who would have either had no choice but to crack a screen reader, or go without, and that kind of attitude is something that really makes me angry.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2017-11-10 23:48:37

NVDA isn't exactly legal either, the addons I mean. Eloquence wasn't really made for it, somebody just figured out how to make the drivers work with NVDA, and eloquence isn't free... I still use it though cuz I can't stand espeak.

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

2017-11-10 23:58:49

True. But saying that NVDA is illegal just because some shady add-ons exist is kind of missing the point. Reminds me of all the hype a few months back about pirated Kodi boxes.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2017-11-11 00:09:53

The Eloquence addon is condemned by NV-Access and is not an official NVDA component. It's something users made and distributed against NV-Access's wishes. I would concede to complaints about the open source nature of NVDA making it vulnerable to this sort of thing, but only if it is applied equally to any open source software without a strong defense against this sort of thing. The steps NV-Access would need to take to effectively defend against unlawful or dangerous addons would invalidate all pre-existing addons, unless there's some clever trick for this of which I am not aware. Notice, though, that the Eloquence addon is buggy and sometimes breaks when NVDA updates. That might be accidental, but it going unpatched is not.
TLDR: community-driven modular software has cons, too.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2017-11-11 02:06:14

I agree with turtlepower17 and cae_jones. Just because there are some shady add-ons for NVDA hat are technically illegal doesn't make the entire product illegal. That's like saying that someone's computer that runs windows is illegal because said computer has pirated applications on it. That's not making windows illegal, that's not making the computer itself illegal, that's making the methods used to register those particular applications illegal. It doesn't make the applications illegal, either. Don't claim that JAWS is better because it has a higher price tag and it is supposedly better than everything else. JaWS is bad for exactly that reason -- the incredibly high price tag and the feature bloat. If I were to guess, I'd estimate that over 90 percent of the members on this forum do not have enough money to pay for JAWS legally, so ask their local governments to do it for them, or crack it. That's extremely sad, considering the amount of members on this forum. If we do a comparison between JAWS and NVDA, comparing price tags and features, NVDA is going to win, simply because it is far more open, allows users to customize it however they want, and is entirely free. Smart controls doesn't make JAWS better; ever heard of screen layout? That's effectively NVDA's equivalent to smart controls. NVDA doesn't have flexible web; that really is quite irrelevant since it only works in internet explorer.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2017-11-11 09:18:35

Cae, what you said about updates breaking the addon may explain why when I updated my NVDA all addons got deleted and I had to reinstall all of them. Yet another reason I prefer jaws, crap like that doesn't happen at all.

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

2017-11-11 09:45:47

Odd blind jedi, I have updated Nvda several times and never lost an adding as yet.
As regards voices, I actually did pay for the vocaliser Addon for Nvda, since while I could use Orphius alan from my supernova setup on my desktop, I wasn't going to install supernova on my laptop just to use Supernova.

Then again I personally have never liked Eloquence anyway, mostly because it's English accent sounds pretty terrible.

As for the dark team name, well there would need to be rather more of us for a legion or an army, right now we're more like  clique of darkness, or maybe the club of darkness, ----- no wait that sounds like a D&D weapon big_smile.

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.)

2017-11-11 10:31:58

I've never experienced these problems. I'd suggest reporting the issue to NV Access.

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.

2017-11-11 10:41:52

@Turtlepower, Thumbs up for post 25