Hello all. My name is Christopherr. I am blind. I wanted to beta test the beta version of Comodo Internet Security 5.8, I cannot do so. It is not screen reader accessible. The only thing that is accessible, are the popup -alerts. But not the interface. I cannot change any settings that I want for my needs, nothing. It must have graphics. If so, please turn them off for default or change the UI so it can work with screen reader programs.
Have you tired to change it to standard windows theme? Go to more at the top, then click on preferences, then appearance. from the drop down box select windows theme, you might have to restart the computer for it to take effect. Let us know if that works.
Hello, thanks for the reply. Will I need sighted assistants to change this setting? Currently, if I try tabbing around, or using the aero keys, nothing happens. I’ll give out my screen reader and OS name. Screen reader: NVDA. OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. You may google NVDA and learn about this software. Thanks.
I suspect you will need help from someone seeing as it can’t read it now.
Hello, thanks for the response. I remember in earlyer versions of Comodo Internet security, or Firewall, like version 4, it was very screen reader friendly. But now in this new version, it doesn’t read anything. I’ve tried this with other screen readers, and it fails. Should I email the developers of NVDA to add support for Comodo if this cant be fixed? Thanks.
if changing to windows theme does not work, try contacting the developers of the screen reader. Please let me know if changing the theme works or not, if not I will point Melih the ceo of the company to this thread, I am sure he is willing to have the devs help you and work with any company to make CIS accessible to everyone.
Hello, thanks for the response. I got someone to help change it to the Windows theme, and it still fails. I don’t know what is wrong with this UI. I’ve emailed the developers of this software. I was told to enable all reading functionality. i’ve done that and it still fails. Hope it becomes accessible in the future. I really want to keep my computer as safe as possible. In the mean time, I am using Microsoft Security Essentials, but I’d like to use something that’s more powerful. Thanks. Christopher.
ok thanks for the update, I will contact the proper people and see if they can start looking into it.
Hello Christopher,
Can you please let us know which screen reader software and tools are you using and on which operating system?
Thanks,
Egemen
Screen reader: NVDA. OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Hello, thank you for trying to help. I really Appreciate it very much. Basicly as you can tell, a screen reader is a program that reads out loud what pops up on the screen. It’s like Narrator that’s built-in to Windows, but it can read a lot more. I’ll give you the website if you need to know more information about this program. It’s free and open source. www.nvda-project.org Just click on the about link and it’ll give you all the information you need. Hope that site helps. I should also mention, when I first installed Comodo, it blocked the exicution. Luckly, I was able to unblock it with sited help, at that point I decided to remove it from my PC.
if egemen comes back and says it works, I can help you remotely if you want using team viewer and set it up for you.
Oh that sounds very nice. By the way, your username sounds Familiar. You have really good software reviews on YouTube. They helped me choose the best security program. And that’s Comodo.
yup i’m the same person from youtube. comodo with some software can be harder to setup, so I hope everything can be made to work with it.
So do I. I mean if AVG and Avast, can make their products screen reader compatible, Comodo should too. I’ve tried them before on my virtual Windows XP machine. I use VMware Player.
Hi Christopher,
We have identified the root cause of the issue. CIS self-defense is causing the issue and there are workarounds to thwart this.
All you need is to add nvda.exe to Interprocess Memory Access Protection exceptions of COMODO Internet Security group in Defense+ rules.
However since CIS wont allow an application to control itself by default, you probably wont be able to do this initially.
Do you have a 1 time alternative method to disable Defense+ so that you can make some simple policy modifications?
No, at this time I don’t. I cannot do anything with Comodo. I cannot tab around, I can’t aero around, nor can I use the screen reader commands. It’s completely inaccessible. In previous versions, it was very friendly with NVDA and other screen-reading software. Does it still have keyboard navigation?
Well, the only way I could disable self-defense is to have someone remotely go into my computer and do it for me.
I will let you know the steps. There are easy ways to disable it manually. All you need to do is to manually rename c:\windows\system32\drivers\cmdguard.sys file to something else and then restart your PC. This will disable CIS and it will let you know to do this manually.
After restarting, you need to open cfp.exe or CIS GUI,
1 - Go to Defense±>Computer Security Policy->Defense+ Rules
2 - Click entry named COMODO Internet Security and click on Edit button
3 - In the opened window, click on Customize button
4 - Click on Protection Settings tab, and you will see protection items grid
5 - In this grid, you can do 2 things: Disable interprocess memory access protection by simply clicking on the checbox in Inactive column or
6 - You can click on Modify button in the exceptions column where you can add all of the files related to your support software. You need to click on Add->Browse button and choose the installation path of the support sofware and add them to exceptions.(nvda.exe is the file that is being blocked from accessing CIS memory but you can add all the files)
7 - Restore c:\windows\system32\drivers\cmdguard.sys file back and restart.
After these steps, eveerything should be fine.
We are currently checking what else we can do to help visually impaired users without having them following these steps.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Thanks for the steps. I will reinstall CIS and try this. I’m hoping this will work. I just thought it was the graphics. Since screen-reading software doesn’t read graphs.