WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Alternative Web Browsers for Use with JAWS

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Dec 16, 2008 10:55AM

JAWS does behave differently with Firefox and Internet Explorer. A lot of
the time there is no difference but there are occasions when Internet
Explorer works better. I can't think of any content that has worked better
with Firefox.

It is not a matter of usability issues that the user can get used to. It's
largely due to differences in MSAA support that mean that Firefox does not
integrate as well with JAWS. This is not an issue for static content but it
is more so for dynamic content such as JavaScript and Flash.

However, the situation is improving all the time and at some point I expect
there will be little difference. Firefox 1.0 had no MSAA support and worked
very poorly with JAWS, so it has come a long way in just a few years.

Steve