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From: Jim Byrne Accessible Web Design
Date: Wed, Mar 12 2025 3:22AM
Subject: Browsers appear to be omitting the alternative text when images are turned off
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Hi y’all,

I notice that some browsers appear to be omitting the alternative text when images are turned off. Can anyone on the list point me to any information explaining this? Would you say it impacts accessibility?

I searched for related information but the following is all I could find:

There’s some discussion here indicating that this can be due to the browser itself: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33942960/what-is-supposed-to-happen-when-an-img-cant-be-displayed

It seems that Firefox not showing the alternative text when images are off may not be a contravention of the standard. I found this discussion at https://derby-dev.db.apache.narkive.com/mG4Oeltd/graphic-alt-text-for-accessibility-does-not-appear-in-firefox-does-appear-in-ie-derby-1842

“The HTML standard does not require a browser to show the alt text unless the image cannot be rendered: User agents must render alternate text when they cannot support images, they cannot support a certain image type or when they are configured not to display images. (HTML 4.01)

Firefox is a graphical browser and, as such, does not have to display it, while w3m and Lynx are text-only browsers and 'must' render the text.”

Re: Safari
It seems that the ‘disable images’ option has been removed from the latest version of Safari.

Alternative text stills shows on Chrome when images are disabled.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
Jim







Multi-award-winning WCAG 2.2 AA Accessibility Auditing and Accessibility Consultant

Web: https://jimbyrne.co.uk

Jim Byrne is one of the UK’s most experienced practitioners in the area of accessible digital design.

Jim provided feedback during the development of WCAG 2 (the de facto accessibility guidelines used by governments across the world). He is the author of a number of technical books, training courses and accessibility guides. Jim was a winner of the equal access category of the Global Bangemann Challenge.