2018-09-27 21:13:44

Lately there have been a lot of Jaws topics, and in those topics there's been constant bickering going on back and fourth about which screen reader is better. This is my attempt at making a topic where we can discuss our differences calmly and in a civilized manner without saying things like, "Jaws sucks! Jaws is a rip off!" Or vice-versa.
The first thing I'm going to discuss are the flaws with the side I'm on, which is NVDA. One of the main things I've seen is that whenever a topic about Jaws is started, no matter what, there's always an NVDA user there to bash it and turn it into a lets bash Jaws competition. After one of us instigates it, we make the Jaws users upset with us. Guys, do you know the message we're sending out to people by doing these things. We deliver the message that we're immature spoiled brats who hate Jaws solely for the reason that it's paid, and nothing else. We're acting like we should be entitled to have screen readers for free because we're blind. I know none of you guys think that, so why are you acting like it?
Now, onto the Jaws users. Sometimes we do state our case maturely and with facts to back up our claims, but you guys get upset with us if we say bad things about Jaws. Why? I understand you like your choice of screen reader, but it's not good to get upset when someone points out a legitimate flaw with it. There's always going to be problems with a product, no matter how good it is, and getting upset with criticism won't help with that.
Now, onto the reasons I personally don't like Jaws. The main one is that I don't mind paying for a screen reader, but when I'm buying a laptop for the price of four and the screen reader in question doesn't provide every single thing I expect to be using it for, it kind of feels like I'm being ripped off. NVDA is free and portable, (which is convenient for me,) and even if there's a feature I need that the screen reader doesn't have I can install an add-on for it. Jaws does have a script engine, but I heard it can't do nearly as much as nvda's add-ons can.
Now, it's time for the Jaws users to speak. What do you like about your screen reader, and what do you not like about the other? Keep in mind that NVDA is run both by NVAccess and by the community, so if you tell us what you want to see we can implement it, assuming it's not too much to ask of course. I myself can't really code things, but I heard some people have problems with the transition over from Jaws to NVDA so I could try and make trainers and stuff if you guys want me to. Anyway, I'd be interested to know your likes and dislikes. Again guys, remember to discuss our differences calmly.

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2018-09-27 21:31:37

My gripe with NVDA is that search engines autocorrect to Nvidia or Nivea, hilariously. That and it doesn't auto wrap back to the top of a page.

That being said both Jaws and NVDA have strengths and weaknesses, neither is objectively perfect and neither is objectively awful

Warning: Grumpy post above
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2018-09-27 22:53:39

I agree with
JaceK it is really anoying that NVDA won't auto wrap to the top of the page. I use both but tend to use Jaws more mainly because it is what I am used to. NVDA does allow me to use Acapela voices so that is the main reason that I use it when I do. Honestly though if I had to pay for Jaws and didn't get it through BVS I'd probably just use NVDA.

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2018-09-27 23:19:49

I actually don't mind the fact that NVDA doesn't wrap, though a toggle would probably please both worlds. If I need to get to the bottom of the document, control end, then move back one. It's an extra second, at most.
If JAWS wasn't nearly so expensive and kept up with new releases a little better, I might still have it on my computer today as a backup. My main issue with JAWS though, and not sure if this has been fixed since my last use of JAWS was like 4 5 years ago, is that absolutely horrible startup time.

"You know nothing of death... allow me to teach you!" Dreadlich Tamsin
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2018-09-27 23:51:12

I think wrapping to the top of a page should be a toggle. When I first started using NVDA a couple of years ago, I didn't think I would ever get used to that, but I found out that it wasn't so bad, actually. Sometimes, I would find myself accidentally scrolling through a page so fast that I would wrap to the top, then I'd have to go back to the bottom and find what I was looking for again. I mean, yes, it's probably only an extra second or two, but I kind of like the fact that, if I'm at the bottom of a page, that's it, I can't go any further. However, I do think there should be a toggle, because it's a feature that many people are used to, and I don't think it would be that difficult to implement.

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

2018-09-28 00:13:09

Oh boy...

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End division
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2018-09-28 00:28:13

JAWS has been my screen reader since version 3.5 and thus I am quite familiar with it. Since I'm able to maintain an SMA, I don't really see the need to switch to NVDA. If I was unable to maintain my SMA or take advantage of the new subscription program that's coming soon (TM), I would probably make the switch to NVDA.

I will confess that I don't know all that much about NVDA and have only played around with it a bit. What I don't really care for is object navigation. It seems entirely too complicated. Since I prefer to use Eloquence, I also don't like that I have to either buy an sapi Eloquence license that has ridiculous DRM that makes me wish copious amounts of incurable maladies upon whoever came up with that bullshit, or use an illegal addon.

That's all I have at the moment.

As for the startup time issue, beta 2019 starts up a lot faster.

2018-09-28 00:37:29

All of your screen readers are garbage. I'm running the perfect cross platform solution. Windows, android, mac OS, iOS,reality (TM) and any other platforms bow before this extremely powerful piece of technology. I have procured a meatbag, chained it to a chair and can roll it around to provide me spoken feedback no matter what platforms I use. If it crashes or slows down, the application of electricity to the meatbags genitals soon gets it going. I sure do hate it When people try to say bad things about my meatbag screen readers and if anyone even attempts to do that here, I'll have to make another forum thread to discuss meatbag screen readers, how good they are and how the users of meatbag screen readers are just like... superior to the rest of these filthy plebs.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

2018-09-28 02:37:36

@Draq What is it about Eloquence that you like exactly?
@Exodus I have a product that's much better than your stupid meat bag. Here's the commercial about it. https://www.dropbox.com/s/l4pjo9delys0u … l.wav?dl=1

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2018-09-28 03:21:46 (edited by magurp244 2018-09-28 07:53:04)

Practically speaking Jaws and NVDA as products are more or less equal, asking about which is best is alot like asking which operating system is best, or which gaming console, etc. It all seems like a recipe for pointless debate which I don't think is really the issue. There are a few caveats that seem to historically irritate people, and in a lot of ways the differences between the two reminds me of the pre-antitrust Microsoft versus Linux. Its not the product or even the price that people are having a problem with exactly, so much as the companies culture and attitude which tends to influence their business practices.

For example, read some of the employee reviews for Freedom Scientific over the past few years on [GlassDoor], [Indeed], and [CarrierBliss], for whatever a former employees opinion may be worth. For some historical perspective there's also [Hofstader's Blog] of his time working for the company in the late 1990's.

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2018-09-28 04:04:54

I'm a little confused about the "wrapping" thing, since neither supernova nor NvdA did that, if you want to find things at the bottom of the page you go to the bottom, I think I'd personally find that a bit  odd, but then again I've never used Jaws myself.

I will say the price is a pretty huge issue for me. I actually am! on the monthly donation for NvdA since I like what they're doing and want them to continue doing it, and I do realize that development itself costs money, so I'm certainly not against paying for a screen reader if needed.

If I could buy Jaws for a couple of hundred quid and maintain the license for less than fifty a year I'd definitely try the thing out, but since unless i win the lottery or rob a bank I won't have the cash to spare on Jaws, I don't really see the point of even trying the demo when I'm currently happy with all of the things NvdA does anyway, heck I've not even maintained my current supernova license to version 17 after I was so disappointed with version 16 since while I'm curious to see if some of the windows 10 issues that caused me to fall out with the  screen reader I'd used for the previous 18 years were fixed, I don't have cash to try out on experiments.

As far as focus modes go, maybe it was being so familiar with supernova for such a long while but adapting to NvdA was never difficult for me, the focus thing always made sense, indeed I'd probably miss not having a virtual cursor to play with on occasion if NvdA didn't have one 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.)

2018-09-28 04:31:22

I found object nav quite daunting at first as well, and the user guide actually frustrated me more. It was because I happened to stumble upon a podcast which explained the concept extremely well that I became acquainted with it, and actually like it better overall than the JAWS cursor. having said that, there are still a few applications that JAWS does tend to read better, so I keep a demo around for those rare occasions.

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

2018-09-28 04:34:54

@Dark wrapping is jumping back up to the top so let's say I'm doing a google search and I am hitting H to jump to headings. Let's say I'm interested in the second search result but I check the rest of them just to be sure first. Once I get to the last heading I can just keep hitting H and it will take me back to the first heading. It’s just for convenience and yeah you can just hit control home it is one of those things that's annoying not to have when you are used to it.

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2018-09-28 04:41:12

i should point out that some recent topics regarding jaws weren't bashing the product it's self, but the parent company's approach to things and the way they treet their customers.

a lot of the people complaining or bashing if you want to put it that way are jaws users who are understandably frustrated. me included.

Who's that trip trapping over My bridge? Come find out.

2018-09-28 04:54:55

@magurp244 I don't think I asked which SR is best, at least I hope I didn't. Sorry if it came across that way. I just want to know what peoples likes and dislikes with each product are.

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2018-09-28 05:04:55 (edited by UltraLeetJ 2018-09-28 07:30:27)

oh my god that bear screen reader commercial... hahahahahahhahaa

I have had used jaws from version 3.2 up until around 12.0
About a few years ago when I had to work in training for some schools, most of them had purchased jaws and thus I had to sort of revisit using it again and I was pretty unimpressed, I mean it was nevertheless the same, I think they actually had to over complicate the setting screens but I liked the search feature anywhere to quickly change a setting, though it tended to slow down some systems. Other than that it was the same for me, though there were some behaviors to which I grew quickly unaccustomed to, including the default key assignments but again, that was lack of practice or what have you. Oh yeah and the keyboard manager or whatever that was took forever to load, when you switched to the default.jkf file.
I for one always disliked the automatic language switching thing and when NVDA introduced that I was like nope, no thanks.
I find eSpeak rather hard to get used to, so I end up using the sapi voices which thank god have improved in the near past for all languages. I really hate what code factory did with an almost ancient product, milking money and a whole lot of it.
As for what I had found annoying about jaws:
sometimes the display driver or whatever it was that did its magic in your graphics card would just pufff, stop working altogether and nothing was read, no lists, no text, no nothing. It was impossible to get a new system going unless you had properly configured the graphics before everything else.
I even remember one time when I had gotten version I think 3.7 of it with the old parallel port type dongle connected and the thing one day just scared the crap out of me. I turned on the pc, printed a bunch of things out, then had to restart because i had installed a new program, and then I started to note this really alarming, almost smoke smell but then noticed the fans were quiet. And then when jaws came up it just said.. no authorization found, please insert the dongle or a valid authorization floppy. turns out, the dongle just melted for some reason. I never got it replaced but then school got me version 4.5 some months later on when I was in the U.S.

Also, oh what a nightmare When programs did hang with jaws there was no hope at all. It would just not ever start, either. Sometimes it would start after a while, and two copies of jaws were fighting on my system! lol
With NVDA I was pleased to find that when you had hit control alt delete the very limited system profile would start talking to you and there was at least a way out, or a way to restart without having to hold the power button in your computer. Launching the shortcut again was pretty much all it took for a NVDA restart and it works fine most of the time. But that does not save NVDA from being really annoying, especially when lots of disk I/oO activity is going on. For some reason it tends to just, not read or respond fast in list views and that is really a bug that has not been fixed, I think it was reported before but that's it, no luck on that. Of course, scripting in NVDA i find insanely difficult, in jaws I tried for a while but it seemed also intimidating, though this was years back so I am not sure how that has really improved or changed.
I also remember around 2004 or 2005, when NVDA was in its 0.5 alfa! state. It was just being born. When I tested it out for the first time on that year I was like Oh hell no I will never switch to that crap.
one thing I miss about jaws is the ability to report different formatted things like lists, then headings and so on using the voice of your choosing with the parameters you had liked, or the playing sounds when you encountered certain elements. NVDA I believe has some add ons for similar things but neh, they are not quite the same. Or replacing some symbols like quotation marks with sounds. I think that can be of course a luxury, but made reading some things much complete and yes even though it would lag a bit I found that very enjoyable. NVDA I believe has nothing of the sort but then I just lived, a bit regrettably without it.
I am sure I do have more anecdotes and stuff but that is all that comes to mind at the moment.
Oh yeah. I had tried window eyes at one time or another for some months, it was the only thing we would be allowed to use at school when we had the borrowed laptops. I frankly could not get my head around it. It did work but then again I used that or only the school stuff and nothing else. I could never get fully to grips with it .. it was just.. weird.
I know that jaws did have a semi portable version, but I am not sure if that is still true now. Semi portable because you had to still install the video intercept driver and find a way to license it and then you could run it from a thumb drive.. so even the demo was not really practical for an internet cafe use.
I also knew about system access to go, but used it if at all once or twice and very little. Not sure if that one still lives but it was a neat idea, a screen reader in the cloud.
edit: it is, and they apparently crack down on their competitors in order to be able to sell but they do have valid points.
Still, they are falling behind fast I am afraid.

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

2018-09-28 05:12:19 (edited by magurp244 2018-09-28 05:25:20)

@shotgunshell Oh, no no, it just seemed as though you're somewhat exasperated with how people have been arguing about the two, its not that you were asking about which one was better, I was just offering my own perspective on that argument.

Jaws does seem to handle esoteric languages and math symbols better than NVDA, given the questions some people have with regards to literary or advanced mathematics classes. Its been pretty difficult to find resources for that anywhere else, though I think NVDA can handle mathematics symbols with an addon.

Edit: As yes, it was the phonetic symbols and IPA Braille scripts for Jaws.

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2018-09-28 06:41:05

The bear thing was funny AF

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2018-09-28 07:25:07

@shotgunshell Eloquence is the synthesizer I've been using for years. I find it very easy to understand, and it does very well at high speeds.

2018-09-28 08:09:36

post 1. given that we're talking about what we like in each screen reader, may we please include narrator? it is rather under estimated  these days, unfortunately.
as for objNav, for those of you who struggle with object navigation like I have, try using it in laptop layout. not sure about now, but when learning object navigation using NVDA, using desktop layout just unnecessarily confused things. so every time I need object navigation, into laptop layout I go.
I have never really used JAWS long enough. with that said, tried switching a few times, and it always felt weird, and clunky.
as for rap to top of page, I would hate it. imagine smashing h a bunch of times to get to the last heading of a page. next thing I know, it rapped back to the top... I would, not? be, happy?

2018-09-28 08:21:14

I need minning of Casually : thanks
best screan reader is nvda!

2018-09-28 09:35:16

Shift+H takes you back to the bottom in JAWS, so I imagine it should do the same in NVDA if it was implemented.

2018-09-28 10:22:25

Hi,
First and formost, the right to have a free and possibly included screen reader installed into your product due to being blind is as legitimate as the right of property or the freedom of assembly. There's no dispute over it. It grants access to your product, or otherwise the use of product.

Now, as regards JAWS and NVDA, I like JAWS because it has a really decent support for the Office package, which is what I work with most of the time no matter where I am. I use Word at school for everything, but I also use it at home when I write tutorials for my blind fellows who do not speak English. I also convert books to Word for some blind seniors who have been trained to use only Microsoft Word and nothing else.
Another reason why I like JAWS is its spead in navigating on the web, Microsoft Word of course, and file explorer (Windows Explorer). I particularly like a command (ctrl+insert+n) which gives you information on the properties of a file, or on the statistics of a document in Microsoft Word. Other features are found in NVDA as well and both products are equally customisable, though JAWS is a little bit more complicated as you have to dive deeper into the Settings centre. One other thing in addition I like about JAWS is its very comprehensive help section, but that is quite obvious as the company pays professionals to write those tutorials.
What I dislike about JAWS and Freedom Scientific is its pace at keeping up with the changes that come in recent technologies. For instance, JAWS struggled all along the version 18 to keep current with the changes that came in Windows 10. Edge was poorly supported and still is. Notifications are not always read, meaning that even if the computer is idle and you're not interacting with JAWS, it won't read new notifications in some instances.
As about NVDA, I like the way NV Access has designed the product. NVDA will read the information that is necessary for the user without adding extra information. JAWS, for instance, in many windows program reads something like graphic 795 Google Chrome. Another thing which is important to me is the way NVDA Reads instructions which come after some menues in many windows programs, including Office. for instance, when a document is in compatibility mode and you want to optimise it for the version of Word you're using, JAWS will first read:
Some new features are disabled to prevent problems when working with previous versions of Office. Converting this file will enable these features, but may result in layout changes. Convert Button. To activate press spacebar. K
In contrast, NVDA simply reads: "convert button. Alt+K. and the extra information is read after mentioning the menu.
The other reason I like, and the reason I primarily use NVDA is its integration with all the common web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. NVDA has been able to maintain a good support for all the recent versions and everything workss as expected. NV Access has done a really wonderful job by providing a decent support for Google Chrome, which is the most popular web browser at the moment. Edge has also got a better support on NVDA than JAWS. JAWS crashes on many websites and when reading PDF documents. The same happens with Firefox.
There are three things I don't like about NVDA:
1. NVDA often loses focus on the web, especially when navigating with quick keys, such as H for Heading, B for button, and so on.
2. NVDA is very slow when working with the office Package, particularly when using the three apps: Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.
3. The object navigation thing is horribly complicated.

2018-09-28 11:51:58

@Jeffb that makes sense about the rapping  thing, though I think as Braille09 said it would confuse me me not being used to it.

@Afrim, thumbs up for a balanced opinion there, though I do have to question your points about Office.
After using supernova with word for years I was quite surprised how well NvdA worked with it since I know the current version of Office isn't exactly as user friendly as it used to be.
I haven't specifically noticed a slowdown with NVdA and office, but I have noticed that nvdA generally  isn't as system efficient if something like windows update is going on. its fine on my desktop with the huge ram, but on this laptop if windows needs to update I always get a big slowdown until everything is done with, especially having to wait for NvdA to focus on a new window such as a new program opening, though equally I've noticed that problem has gone away significantly with the last few versions of NvdA,
plus I will say since my laptop tends to only be used every couple of weeks, I usually have a huge bunch of updates to get through when I start it up again  once all those are done things are fine, so whether the problem is an NvdA one or just to do with Windows updates I am not sure.

I can't speak about Jaws features,  there are a couple of things from Supernova I miss in NvdA.
One of them is the ability to set different parameters for things like punctuation, capitalisation, speak numbers etc for different situations.
for example, I used to have supernova set to read punctuation in edit areas while I was typing, but not in other places such as document read. similarly, I would have numbers while typing be read as digits, but while reading to be read as hole numbers, ditto with capitals.

this isn't a major deal and something I can live without, particularly since vocaliser is fairly good about letting you hear punctuated sentences, but it is something I miss.

I also do not like NvdA's commands for finding text on a page. In supernova it was simply a case of f3 for find, f4 for find next and f2 for  previous (substitute the ctrl key in laptop layout). Since the find textcommands are ones I tend to use a lot, having to hit ctrl nvdA F can get a bit annoying.

It's not a huge deal of course, but it is something I miss.

I  also Miss some of the Supernova virtual curser commands, for example if I wanted to read anything in the status bar I'd just alt tab to the desktop go straight to virtual curser and hit ctrl end, then could come back to live focus and be exactly where I was before, writing a document or whatever.

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.)

2018-09-28 13:10:03 (edited by flackers 2018-09-28 13:17:06)

Part of the problem with comparing jaws and NVDA is that most of us are using one 90 to 100 percent of the time, and only dip into the other for occasional tasks, or to just see what it's like. Of course the one we use for 10 hours a day feels nicer. Maybe these features are in NVDA too, but here is the stuff I missed from jaws when I tried seriously to switch because FS had just charged me over 600 quid basically for an update: The script manager is top of the list and a proper deal breaker. The basics of scripting manual is really easy to follow if you know nothing about scripting, or any aspect of IT. The exercises are easy to do, and within 48 hours of first looking at it, I was able to create a genuinely useful set of scripts that made a piece of drum creation software accessible again. The reason I'm such a fanboy about jaws and particularly the script manager, is that I was always a creative sort. When I was young and had sight, my bedroom was filled with paintings,  murals, collages, and other little arty things. Every wall was a floor to ceiling mural. The ceiling was too. The door was a collage. The table was made from a guitar soundbox and a TV stand. The light shade was made from a wheel trim from a sports car, etc. I was just a typical creative person who loved to fill blank space with something of my own. Then I started to go blind and wasn't able to do these sorts of things so well, and so I switched to music, which allowed me to carry on filling empty space with stuff. Then a few years later a simlar pattern repeated itself. I'd been using zoomtext to access a PC, and it'd started to get really dificult because I was approaching total blindness. So I gave jaws a try, and it was such a relief to be able to just read a screen effortlessly, and find things like add to cart buttons really quickly. I remember thinking why didn't I start using a screen reader a year ago and save myself the literal pain in the neck, and headaches. But then I had a horrible realisation: the few music creation apps I'd been using for the past few years were totally inaccessible with a screen reader, and I was facing losing my creative outlet again. It was pretty depressing I can tell you. Whenever I mentioned this to PC people, the word scripting always came up, but I thought I didn't stand a chance of teaching myself to do that. Then I read the basics of scripting that comes with jaws, and within a few days my first project: making the grid on a piece of drum creation software readable with jaws, was complete. I went on to improve my techniques and was able to make the much more complex guitar rig app almost entirely accessible. It was one of the most satisfying and rewarding things I've ever done. I thoroughly enjoyed the problem-solving aspect of scripting, and at the end of it, I knew I could carry on using my favourite music apps, and would always be able to make things accessible in the future.
The other features I miss when not using jaws are flexible web, placemarkers, instant document OCR via the pearl camera, the jaws cursor, screen wrapping, and application specific settings.
jaws is ridiculously overpriced for an individual, but it's the most important tool for independent living in my life. NVDA can do this too, but I'd been using jaws for a few years and had already written a ton of scripts before I even knew it existed, so I'm just saying why I love jaws, and maybe don't react well to seeing people who've never needed it bashing it in the hopes it will be destroyed.
I think when jaws vs NVDA discussions turn nasty, it's just pure tribalism. It's old old behaviour, and hard to rise above.
What I like best about NVDA is the spirit behind it, and the fact that it's a genuine competitor to quote the world's most popular screen reader end quote. It's living proof that things can be done purely for the good of the community, and can not only compete with but outstrip things that are done purely for commercialism. It makes a lie of the fact that you need to be making a ton of money to attract the best people, and therefore achieve the greatest things. No one's getting filthy rich off NVDA, and it's performing fantastically, and always improving and keeping pace with advances, more so than jaws. NVDA also is much lighter, and installs quickly and easily. Jaws' installation, particularly in the past, was slow and clunky as hell, and would often hang and leave you wondering what was going on. Or restart and leave you with no screen reader, and no shortcut to start one.