The screen reader wars my take.
With the announcement of GwMicro making Window-eyes free to users of Microsoft 2010/2013 as well as anyone with an office 365 account the blind community has never had so much choice when it comes to screen reader access.
As far as I’m concerned this is the end of JAWS once and for all. Paying $1500 to access ones computer is simply absurd.
I personally think the Mac is the way to go. But if you need to use Windows for business/education NVDA is the screen reader to go with. Here’s just some of the reasons:
- It’s free. none of the other solutions are free. For Window-eyes you need a copy of Microsoft 2010/2013 or the aforementioned 365 account.
- It’s updated constantly.
- It’s portable. Something that can’t be said of both JAWS or Window-eyes.
I’d like to point you to the following article:linkedin – My Thoughts on GW Micro
In the article the author says that NVDA is only fit for basic use. This is far from the truth NVDA has excellent support for the open office standard, works brilliantly with firefox and is specially important to those who are in education.
He does have a point when it comes to the business market however. N V Access needs to address this short coming for their corporate users.
The summary is that NVDA is still the best and only truly free screen reader making a difference at the moment.
It will be interesting to see what Freedom Scienttific do with JAWS.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Get in contact.