good post, i agree. Although, freedom scientific have tried to make plans for jaws not as expensive, e.g: i believe they have a 90 day trial and a monthly or yearly subscription to avoid paying all up front. Just my opinion? its too little; too late at this point. A lot of users are making the switch to nvda if they haven't already. Is jaws bad? no. But for  a company that limes that their goal is to help people, etc,  etc? For years having to pay over $1000 up front or get screwed; speaks out very; very loudly about freedom Scientific. Given their price range, there's a lot of people who cant afford it. And yet they claime to help people? I don't buy it. Just my opinion on  the matter.

I, as a JAWS user from 2005? to 2011 and as an NVDA user since 2011 (I've used other screen readers like Super Nova (at the time Access Suite (now called Mag&Screen Reader)), the defunct thunder and other which I don't know the name of), I will stay with NVDA for ever. Plus, it has now the first place of used screen readers according to a blind servey I was responding? 2 months ago, but I forgot the name of it. It is kinda historical at best since many people were using expensive apps for visualy impaired / low vision people and I sincerely go with NVDA at best.

Jaws has a lot of support for commonly used programs, and it had support for some of these programs long before NVDA even existed.
Jaws tends to be more robust and has more overall features. Now, I'm not saying all these features are useful or cutting-edge, but they're there. I don't use a lot of them.
I also tend to greatly prefer Jaws on the internet, given the way NVDA reacts to webpages and lays things out. I'm much happier using a combination of Jaws and IE, or Jaws and Chrome, for web-browsing.
That said, I do have NVDA installed and I use it pretty regularly. I'm able to see the good in it. It is an excellent screenreader and ultimately what it will come down to for a lot of users is preference. It's also free to use, so that's enormous.

I don't agree with what Freedom Scientific, or VFO, or whatever they choose to call themselves on any particular day is doing. Their business practices and overall philosophy makes me sick, and they don't really seem to care about the average user, just big organizations that hapily continue paying for JAWS when in most cases NVDA can perform the same task.

Narrator is becoming quite a viable screen reader. I hope this trend continues, because it's beyond wonderful. We finally have a built-in screen reader in Windows that is very capable of performing most daily tasks a person would want to do. I've said this before, and I'll say it again, but the only reasons I can justify JAWS anymore is either you're used to it and it works for you, or the use of custom scripts for an application.

Hello,

In a normal situation I could agree to all of your argument, but about this, think that a screen reader needs to be updated every time, and in the case of JAWS you cannot have it updated without a big pay every ... year?

In case of NVDA, if you have the knowledge you can contribute to the core and help NVDA to be updated to support latest windows technologies such UIA patterns and IA2 solutions implemented by application vendors. This is a thing you cannot do with JAWS.

I've paid 1k dollars for my notebook and I cannot pay other 1k dollars for a screen reader, it is a absurd thing to do.

I have a demo of JAWS installed on my laptop, but sincerely I don't know why I have this crap on my disk.

Cheers,

I'm afraid defender, the problem is even before you get to discussing the strengths/weaknesses of Jaws, you have to discuss the price.
when  I moved to windows 10 in 2017 (yes I was late), and discovered supernova's windows 10 support was severely limited, there was absolutely no question of using Jaws since there was no way in hell of me being able to afford it. Heck, I didn't even bother looking at the demo.

Were Jaws priced as most software is priced, or even with the moderately more expensive pricing of something like microsoft office's yearly subscription, I'd have been glad to try it out, but the plane fact is however good something might or might not be, if you can't afford it, it makes sense to look elsewhere.

I don't doubt that Jaws has strengths of it's own, and that were someone to suddenly buy me a Jaws license I'd find things I liked about the program, heck Supernova does a few things better than NVdA but those hypothetical benefits just don't justify the price tag.

I'd personally love to see the pricing of Jaws, and heck Supernova for that matter come down to something similar to most pieces of software, so that  would be viable commercial alternatives, and so that we would actually have some competition.
As it is though, it just seems freedom Scientific, and to a lesser extent dolphin have been making way too much of customer loyalty and governmental contracts to sustain an unrealistic price model with a captive user base, and the sooner people and institutions swise up to the fact that there are alternatives out there that don't cost this much, the better for all concerned.

@Dark
I was taking the price into account when I said that.  I was suggesting either the demo (which is super annoying but does almost everything the full version does and restarting is fast on new hardware) or having it paid for by school/work/vocational rehabilitation.

@francipvb
Again, you don't really seem to be an advanced JAWS user, which is fine but it also doesn't qualify you to compare these properly.  Or maybe the last version of JAWS you used was really old, but let me point some things out that you didn't mention.
JAWS has much more comprehensive ways of getting help, significantly better support for commonly used business oriented apps, noticeably higher quality and more versatile OCR, better support for native Windows 10 apps, virtual ribbons, powerful features such as Skim reading and Text Analyzer that NVDA lacks, better reading of mathematical equations, many more options for customizing controls in inaccessible programs out of the box, extreme customization of what JAWS reads and when, a few more supported braille display models, a far more secure way of controlling a remote computer, customer support, and high quality voices that aren't a separate purchase, among many more things I'm sure I've missed.
It also has plenty of high quality scripts from people like Dug Lee, where as most NVDA addons are honestly pretty crap when it comes down to it and have security issues that would make a business hesitate to allow them, even if they are allot easier to create.
And it's really not that laggy any more compared to NVDA either, especially on Windows 8 or higher.  In fact I actually find it less laggy with Firefox for instance...  And it crashes less when doing basic things on Win 10.
It's got plenty wrong with it too, and I'd be happy to list those things, but in general, I've always said that if your in school or have a job where it's extra features could be helpful (which is essentially any) and someone is paying for it (they usually do) than as long as you know what your doing it's almost always going to serve you better than NVDA would in the same situation.

Basically, JAWS costs money for a good reason, and weather it's too much or not has no impact on how good it is at being a screen reader.  VFO's business practices and the quality of JAWS it's self are two separate issues and way too many people combine them with out ever even really getting good enough with JAWS to understand what it has to offer.  It's like using a friend's MacBook for three days a couple years ago and then saying you hate everything about Mac OS including the updated version.

Hi.

@dark, really? I've not used JAWS in a long time but I thought it was a 40 minute mode and you could use it for as long as you were willing to restart your computer?

Personally I think JAWS should have a 30 day trile thing that way you don't have to restart your computer.

@defender, no one was fighting until you made your post that comes across as attacking the OP.

No one was calling anyone names or anything like that.

I'm an NVDA user and find it does all I need it to do. I too moved from JAWS to NVDA when I found out NVDA was free.

People who get jobs have peple paying for JAWS because they've heard it's the best and won't listen to those of us who actually use the thing.

I don't have a job, this is just what I've heard.

@defender, I've not used many office products but from what I understand, NVDA works great with XL, Office and powerpoint so that's the 3 biggest office products made usable by NVDA.

@8 JAWS scripts are still not worth it. NVDA add ons are basically the same thing. And @defender, I actually do understand JAWS. I use it because my school pays for everyone who needs the license. Do I know it as in depth as I know NVDA? No. However, I do know how to use it and navigate a computer that's running it. And @17, there are things I like about both programs, and I am not denying that JAWS is good software. But why should I have to pay for something to read the icons on my desktop? And yes, I have seen JAWS without a license, and it will last Forty minutes, you restart, and you can do this as much as you'd like. But defender, please never tell me what I understand and what I don't understand. Thanks. That's like if you made a topic about why TalkBack is better than Voiceover, and I tell you, "You don't understand Voiceover". Who am I to tell you that? I do not know your strengths and weaknesses.

That's not true.  You do get a slight understanding of how much he knows and if he's doing it as an advanced user or just a typical one. You see, there's this Persian proverb that says, unless a man speaks, his defects and perfection not known.

@Dark
It gives you allot of warnings actually (too many IMO) and it lasts for ever not 15 days.  If what you said was the case I would totally agree with you though.
As for depending on others to keep your software license up to date, I agree.  That's partially why NVDA is my primary, but since nearly all jobs where I'd need JAWS would pay for it, the problem pretty much solves it's self.  I understand this isn't an option in much of the world, which then of course means that NVDA is the best option, but that's also because it's the only true option, aside from narrator I guess.
So saying JAWS is worse because you can't afford it is like saying Ferrari's are all useless piles of crap, without ever having truly been able to drive one.  It's self defeating.

@Brad
You may be right about me making the tone worse, I was frustrated and didn't have to come off that way.  The name calling may not have started yet but the ignorance and bias is well under way already, and this kind of bad info hurts everyone who is actually asking the question legitimately and with an open mind.  That's what I'm mostly upset about, but I should have handled it better.

As for you preferring NVDA; hey, that's great, if it works for you better I'm glad.  I also use it as my primary and really like it.
But JAWS (Job Access with Speech) is nearly always better in the workplace.  Mostly because it keeps up with updates for business apps and supports more of them, like Turbotax and Quickbooks as well as some database management software.
I think that people complaining about only being able to use JAWS at work either A.  Don't know the more helpful advanced features and have only gotten more basic training B.  Are only provided with an older and slower version of it or C.  They believe that NVDA would work better with a specific program.
So I agree that they should have the choice to use NVDA if they want and it does what they need, but I really don't agree that NVDA is better for the workplace overall.
Also, powerpoint support on NVDA really isn't that great from what I know and JAWS just has allot more useful features in the context sensitive help, more obscure dialogues and lists read properly, virtual ribbons, announcement of more formatting info, the skim reading and text analyzer tools which help complement Word, and just over all generally less lag (though hopefully UIA will help NVDA catch up a bit)
Speaking of catching up, if you read the NVDA changelogs, you will notice that they are still adding basic office support for things that JAWS was doing years ago as of 2019, so they still have catching up to do even if they are closing the gap.

@rwbeardjr
NVDA addons are not basically the same thing as JAWS scripts.  Generally those writing scripts are more professional and include far more help documentation, and some scripts, like those for Skype and Zoom for instance, are almost like an entire reskin of the program, where as most NVDA addons just do the bare minimum.
Also, though their are more addons over all, you will see that many of them don't work properly any more or do things in an insecure way which would make businesses not want to allow them on their network.
Don't get me wrong, I love addons like golden cursor, clipspeak, JGT, Automatic Speech Output for IF interpreters, and the Winamp, and VLC addons, but there are many more broken, buggy, and limited ones than good ones.

And the reason you have to pay at all to access your desktop?  Well that's because other people are paying for you, and even that wasn't enough to keep NVDA going, so now they are selling training books and looking into support contracts for businesses and schools, as well as providing consultation for Microsoft on narrator.
Well lets see here.
1.  Paying programmers is expensive (those guys can easily make 80K per year)
2.  Paying for office space, equipment, and utilities and support staff is also expensive.
3.  Licenses for various JAWS components need to be paid for, usually for every copy soled, such as the OCR engine and voices.
4.  Having a good customer support line and people to answer it costs money.
5.  Training materials and podcasts cost money to create.
6.  Advertisement space and hotel/food/wrentle cars in order to attend important conventions and exhibitions like the NFB and CSUN.
Never forget that JAWS pioneered many of the concepts and features that we now take for granted in all modern screen readers (including NVDA) before we had a high quality free choice, it was either paying for JAWS, System Access, or Window Eyes.  So really, it's very lucky that we have any good free choices, and we should all be glad for those who paved the way, even if they aren't deserving of allot of respect nowadays.

As for assuming you aren't an advanced user...  I was right wasn't I?  I never said you couldn't use it at all.
And I based that on what you did and did not say in your first post and nothing else.
So take your talkback VS Voiceover analogy, and instead make it so that the reason I claimed Talkback was better than Voiceover is because it could custom label controls (voiceover can too) and because Voiceover has worse braille support (not true).
Obviously, you would probably say I haven't used Voiceover enough to know yet, because actually that's not true, and so making a judgement without important info is bad and gives people the wrong idea that don't know better.
Like you admitted your self: "Do I know it as in depth as I know NVDA? No."
I'm not asking you to be an expert before having any opinion (I'm not one either) but you neglected to mention some important things, and I decided that instead of assuming you were just trying to make JAWS look worse do to anger at VFO's prices, you just didn't know better.
Should I have assumed the opposite then?  Maybe so, considering off topic jabs at JAWS like this one here and your strong opinions without supporting arguments on other programs like VIP Mud VS Mushclient.

Frankly, I think you just got frustrated about the pricing and started venting before thinking it through properly, and never really had a good point to begin with.

Counter argument to the sportscar
Yes. While a Ferari 812 superfast maybe a killer in power, its dead in practicality. Also the Tesla model 3 P80D  has more usability and has simular performance for quarter the price.
Hope you understand my analagy.