RE: Firefox 4 preview and ARIA report from CSUN

  • From: "Ken Perry" <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2011 20:36:20 -0400

mm far as I know Aria is really a dieing standard because of html5 isn't it?

Ken 

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jamal Mazrui
Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2011 7:26 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Firefox 4 preview and ARIA report from CSUN

Also, another conference take-away for me was that Orca support for the 
WAI-ARIA standard is a long way off, unfortunately.

Jamal


On 3/19/2011 7:23 PM, Jamal Mazrui wrote:
> I am forwarding an article I got from the blind-mozilla list about
> Firefox 4. It does not address accessibility specifically, but offers
> some interesting comparative information about competing browsers today.
>
> This topic also made me think about the ARIA-related sessions I attended
> last week at CSUN, and I thought that some of you who were not able to
> attend, yourselves, may be interested in a report. For whatever it's
> worth, there seemed to be a consensus among experts in WAI-ARIA (the
> ARIA accessibility standard of the W3C, which is currently a candidate
> recommendation) that the latest JAWS and NVDA provide the best screen
> reader support for ARIA apps at this time. Companies doing a lot in this
> space with attention to accessibility include IBM and Adobe. WebAIM
> includes much nonprofit expertise in this area.
>
> Jamal
>
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> Subject: [blind-mozilla] Firefox 4 to debut on March 22nd and looks
> mighty impressive!
> Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:35:01 +0000
> From: chris hallsworth <christopherh40@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: blind-mozilla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: blind-mozilla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
> *10 Things to Drool Over in Firefox 4
> PC World
>
> ? Thu Mar 17, 5:54 pm ET
>
> Mozilla's Firefox 4 is now officially expected to debut on Tuesday March
> 22, following hard on the heels of Google's Chrome 10 and Microsoft's
> Internet Explorer 9.
>
> With so many new browser releases coming out in such rapid succession,
> it stands to reason that at least some users are going to need some help
> figuring out which now works best for them.
>
> Toward that end, I had a chat earlier today with Johnathan Nightingale,
> Mozilla's director of Firefox development, to get a sense of what the
> final release of Firefox 4 will bring. Here are some of the highlights
> of what we can expect.
>
> 1. More Speed
>
> With its new JägerMonkey JavaScript engine, Firefox 4 delivers huge
> performance enhancements, Nightingale told me, including faster startup
> times, graphics rendering and page loads. In fact, in performance tests
> on the Kraken, SunSpider and V8 benchmarks, for example, Firefox 4 blew
> away previous versions of the browser, with performance results between
> three and six times better.
>
> Firefox 4 also outdid Chrome 10, Opera 11.1 and Internet Explorer 9 in
> the Kraken benchmark, as GigaOM recently noted. Bottom line: It's
> blazingly fast.
>
> 2. Less Clutter
>
> Tabs are now given top visual priority in Firefox 4 so as to enable more
> efficient and intuitive browsing. In addition to its new "tabs on top"
> layout, however, the software now also offers a number of other features
> to make it simpler and more streamlined.
>
> A Switch to Tab feature, for instance, helps reduce tab clutter by
> automatically calling up an already-tabbed URL rather than duplicating
> it all over again. "It took my tab list from 80 to 90 down to 50 or 60,"
> Nightingale said.
>
> "The slowest part of browsing is often the user," he explained. "If you
> have 200 tabs open and you can't find the right one, that's the slow
part."
>
> Then, too, there are App Tabs, which allow the user to take sites they
> always have open--such as Gmail or Twitter--off the tab bar and give
> them a permanent home in the browser. Then, no matter where the user
> visits, those tabs are always visible on the browser's left-hand edge.
> Not only that, but each App Tab's icon glows to indicate when there's
> been activity on that site, such as new mail coming in.
>
> When Firefox gets reloaded, it boosts loading speed by focusing first on
> the active page and App Tabs, and then loading other tabs in gradual
> succession after that, Nightingale explained.
>
> Further reducing clutter is Firefox 4's Firefox Button, meanwhile, which
> displays all menu items in a single button for easy access.
>
> 3. Panorama
>
> Though it began as an add-on, Firefox 4's new Panorama feature is
> another one designed to battle tab clutter. Using it, Web surfers can
> drag and drop their tabs into manageable groups that can be organized,
> named and arranged intuitively and visually.
>
> In previous versions of the browser, users with 20 tabs, for example,
> didn't have an easy way to separate out the ones that were related.
> "Some people would put tabs in different windows, but that just moves
> the clutter," Nightingale explained.
>
> Panorama, on the other hand, now provides a visual canvas on which tabs
> can be logically organized into groups representing work, home, hobbies
> or research, for example.
>
> 4. Sync
>
> Another new feature that started life as an add-on is Sync, which
> synchronizes an individual's multiple copies of Firefox across various
> platforms. So, a user might look up directions to a restaurant from
> their work computer, for example, and then be able to easily find and
> pull down those same directions from their Android phone on the road,
> Nightingale explained.
>
> "Wherever you are, Firefox knows you," he added. "It gives you so much
> freedom."
>
> For privacy, all such information is bundled on the user's local machine
> and encrypted before it goes onto the network, he added.
>
> 5. Do Not Track
>
> With a single check box, Firefox 4 users can ensure that any time the
> browser requests a Web page, it will send along a header specifying that
> the user does not want their browsing behavior to be tracked.
>
> In theory, advertisers and Web sites could disregard such requests,
> Nightingale noted--as they could equivalent mechanisms in other browsers
> as well. On the other hand, enforcing them is not a technical problem,
> he noted. "It's a matter of trust--enforcing on the technical side
> doesn't help."
>
> What Nightingale hopes is that advertisers and Web sites will use the
> new capability as an opportunity to show respect for consumers' wishes
> and to demonstrate leadership when it comes to privacy. In beta versions
> of the software, he noted, most wanted to learn more about how to comply
> and get involved.
>
> "I'm keen to see how ad networks and content sites respond," Nightingale
> concluded. With the new technology enabled, "everyone you're interacting
> with knows your intent."
>
> 6. Under the Hood
>
> A number of other features--some visible to users, others not--will also
> appear in Firefox 4, including support for the WebM format for
> HD-quality video; 3D graphics via WebGL; elegant animations through the
> use of CSS3; and multitouch support.
>
> Then, too, there's super-fast graphics acceleration with Direct2D and
> Direct3D on Windows, XRender on Linux, and OpenGL on Mac enabled by
> default on supported hardware.
>
> 7. Improved Security
>
> With HTTP Strict Transport Security, or HSTS, sites can now make sure
> information is always encrypted, thereby preventing attackers from
> intercepting sensitive data. Previously, a hacker sitting in a Starbucks
> store, for example, could potentially watch Web surfers enter a bank's
> home page, which is not encrypted, and hijack them from there,
> Nightingale noted.
>
> With Content Security Policy, or CSP, meanwhile, Firefox 4 ensures that
> cross-site scripting attacks can't infect a site such as through its
> comments section, he added.
>
> I should also note that because Firefox's code is open, it's not subject
> to any vendor's preset patch schedule. Rather, its security is
> constantly being reviewed and improved.
>
> 8. HTML5
>
> Firefox 4's new HTML5 parser and full support for Web video, audio, drag
> & drop, and file handling mean that it's capable of supporting the
> latest Web environments.
>
> 9. Multiplatform Support
>
> Whereas Microsoft's IE9 can be used only on Windows--and only Vista and
> Windows 7 at that--Firefox, as always, is multiplatform. So, whether
> you're on Windows, Linux or a Mac, you can enjoy its powerful new
features.
>
> 10. The Community Touch
>
> Last but not least, whereas proprietary browsers such as IE9 are
> developed by Microsoft's team of paid developers to reflect their own
> vision of what users want, Firefox has been shaped significantly by the
> people who use it. In fact, between 30 percent and 40 percent of its
> code was developed by the community, Nightingale told me. It's hard to
> imagine a better way to make sure a product delivers what users want.
>
> With so many exciting new capabilities, Firefox users have a lot to look
> forward to in this new release. So, for that matter, do the legions of
> Internet Explorer users who will sooner or later make the switch.
>
> Follow Katherine Noyes on Twitter: @Noyesk.
>
> *
>
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