I’m wondering if makers of antivirus, firewall and other security software really think blind users are born with malware. It seems everybody is working their hardest to keep blind computer users away by making their software suites as inaccessible as possible to screen readers. After a forced software update shredded the last bit of accessibility left in Avast 5, I’ve been scouring the net for an alternative that can be used with a screen reader for the blind like JAWS (commercial) or NVDA (free) screen readers. Everything from the installers, to the actual programs and the uninstallers are a nightmare to access.
What does this have to do with Comodo? Well, you guys didn’t score well in this department either! I was excited when I launched the installer and I could use the keyboard to move around (TAB, Shift+TAB) and activate options (spacebar, Enter) - and the selections were read by the screen reader. I thought I had finally found what I needed. That was until the last screen where Comodo asks for a reboot and the system focus is stuck in the YES button, with no way to access the NO button. Oh well at that “reboot now yes or yes” dilemma I decided to reboot.
Again, another brief moment of excitement when the CIS system tray icon displayed a menu that can be navigated via the keyboard and is spoken by the screen reader. Unfortunately, opening the main UI revealed an inaccessible window with focus stuck in the “Summary” button and no way to navigate via the keyboard and read everything else.
Given that Comodo has come closer to delivering something that is usable, is it too much to ask to make the main UI accessible? PLEASE! The only alternative seems to be Microsoft’s own security suite, with questionable security scores and whose resident protection slows down file access to a crawl.
Thank you.
FYI on the thread’s subject: “not cómodo enough” is pun-intended, as “cómodo” is Spanish for “comfortable”.