What’s new in JAWS, ZoomText, and Fusion 2026? Find out in our accessible tech blog: blog.freedomscientific.com/wha…

#JAWS #Accessibility

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in reply to Freedom Scientific / Vispero

Good afternoon. I want to first congratulate you all on the new JAWS release. However, I am deeply concerned about something that I have never in my 24 years as a JAWS user have ever seen before. Why is the new page explorer being excluded from home anual licenses? Never before in JFW's long history have the developers (the creaters) of the software have made a decision to make features of the product license dependent. Yes, it's an AI feature, but so is picture smart, so is the AI labeler. Yes, it costs to use this service, but completly excluding those who cannot afford a perpetual license does not make good business sence to me. I can understand placing limitations on how many calls a user can make, but even that is questionable. The majority of JAWS users are students, and are home users. Only the professional users get unlimited uses of this feature. I do not as a user of JAWS agree with this. And if this is setting a president for future features of the software, this may make me consider other options. Again, page explorer gives much needed detail at first glance that someone may not notice unless they look. Being given suggestions on how to navigate the page is also helpful, particularly for new users. Another scenario to consider is a student, who is new to JAWS, and is having to navigate complex databases. I can remember all too well as a student having to navigate the library databases at college's and universities, and not being able to navigate the pages. Having a feature like this would have been very useful, probably would have helped me do better on my research capabilities. This is such a game changing feature, and it should not have any limits. And again I ask, if a home anual license user who pays for there JAWS license like the rest of us cannot use this feature, I ask, what is the justofication for this?
This entry was edited (21 hours ago)
in reply to Darrell Bowles

@vol4life8657 Thank goodness for the free, open-source screen reader @NVAccess that helps millions of users access computers for absolutely free. It's robust and extensible through addons and it's not controlled by a small group of individuals who charge a fortune for the privilege of accessing digital information. You can donate to support the project if you so choose, but you can download NVDA right now for zero money. No 45-minute mode!