[jaws-uk] Symantec and JAWS Screen Reader

From: "Mujtaba Merchant" <mujtabam@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 08:02:28 +0530
Hello Folks,
 

This is something spectacular I came across at my work place and thought I
should share it with you guys.

 

I work on a Windows 7 OS PC with JAWS 14 installed on it. Now, this PC is
behind a corporate firewall and has Symantec protection I believe corporate
edition. When the IT department installed JAWS on this PC there were initial
glitches in installing it and activating it to the full version. Had
something to do with Administrative privilages. Anyhow, this has nothing
with the concern of this email.

 

I started experiencing iratic behavior from JAWS on applications that were
of my daily use. For example we use Microsoft Communicator 2007 as an
internal communication tool or IM client as some of you may know it as. JAWS
fails to announce the status of my contact in the contacts list, there is
absolutely no clue if the contact is away, in a meeting, busy or just
offline. Then on some web pages it failed to read elements like buttons and
some links. In excel when I switch to the worksheet from another
application, by default the home tab is already selected so I need to press
the escape key before doing anything on the sheet. Sometimes, JAWS would
just get paranoid and start reading arbid text from an application which is
no longer in focus.

 

This made me get really frustrated and I wrote to Freedom Scientific. They
gave me a work around for my communicator issue, unfortunately it did not
work as expected. I did a little research on the net and found out the
culprit is the Symantec protection software that is blocking JAWS
functionality. Here is what Symantec had to say on their website:

 

You can create file exceptions for Tamper Protection. You might want to
create a Tamper Protection exception if Tamper Protection interferes with a
known safe application on your client computers. For example, Tamper
Protection might block an assistive technology application.

 

Source: http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content
<http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO80927>
&id=HOWTO80927

 

Now my question is why does one have to got to go through this extra effort
in adding JAWS or for that matter any other screen reader in the exemption
list of applications in Symantec? Should not they have already figured out
that this will create hinderances to any blind user in a corporate
environment? Why can't Freedom Scientific OR Symantec take some ownership in
creating a more accessible environment for a blind user when it comes to
security.

 

Lucky for me, I have some technical knowledge to back up my researching
ability, imagine a novice blind computer user, he/she would have to go
through a lot of trouble to demystify this strange behavior of his installed
copy of JAWS. This is of most concern because there is no mention of this
issue being reported by Freedom Scientific on their site. I am going to dig
their forums to further investigate this claim of mine.

 

Mujtaba Merchant

Bangalore, India

"Motivation is what gets you started, habit is what keeps you going." ~ Jim
Rohn

 



** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:-
** [mailto:jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe]
** If this link doesn't work then send a message to:
** jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
** and in the Subject line type
** unsubscribe
** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the
** immediately-following link:-
** [mailto:jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq]
** or send a message, to 
** jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq
[jaws-uk] Symantec and JAWS Screen Reader

Other related posts:
