Re: Honest discussion, why pay for and use jaws over free screen readers?
Security... Security... SECURITY! Online security! Fact: your online information is never truly going to be private. This really is the end of the discussion, but everyone starts arguing from this point onward rather than truly examining this statement for what it is, so let us keep going before we atempt to throw the security aspect out the door entirely as it pertains to screen reading technology. Please bare with me if you will, as this will more than likely be a rather lengthy post.
Every company is itching to sell your information to someone to make extra money for themselves. If they haven't done it yet, chances are they will in future, because just as everyone is itching to sell it, someone is itching to buy it, and you don't need to necessarily be a security official with a warrant to obtain it, particularly in the United states. Consider how many of these companies and their products you've used in your lifetime:
1. AOL
2. Microsoft.
3. Apple
4. Amazon.
5. Google.
6. Yahoo.
7. Verizon.
8. Twitter.
9. Facebook.
10. Netflix.
11. Hulu
12. Ebay
13. Paypal.
14. Timewarner/spectrum/comcast/ any brantching subsitiary.
15. AT&T/any previous bell servics such as southwestern or Bell south, singular wireless and other brantching subsitiaries.
16. t-Mobile and any other services they are affiliated with.
17. Cricket and any other services they are affiliated with.
18. Uber
19. Lift
20. If none of these apply to you, do you do any online banking, transactions or commerce of any kind, online dating, cloud computing, college courses and or other online education, email, sending, receiving, etc? More than likely, you do, as you are currently visiting audiogames net, and unless you're seriously taking a ton of steps to not leave a footprint, someone's already got your number.
So, how much of the above applys to you? I obviously can't provide the answer to that. How much can you do about it? You can move to another country, block _javascript_ from ever running on your PC, always delete internet data after browsing sessions, bounce through as many open wireless networks as you can, brows around for a good VPN that doesn't log your data at all, get yourself a ProxyGambit, never use a single addon or plugin or anything that claims to be an extra when browsing, listening to music or overall general computing and online consumption, always remember to use HTTPS at the beginning of every URL and hope the website you're browsing supports it, never download files off the net, never plug a drive containing sensitive data into your computer while you're online, use as many throwaway emails and other socializing accounts as you can with as many different passwords as you can remember, and maybe, just maybe after doing all of that consistently you'll be, well, secure... Safe... Something...
Except for the people factor, because unless you're flat out avoiding people online, someone's going to give you up, eventually, either as an accident or direct act of malice. Whether you believe people are inherently good or evil, there is one thing people all are, and that is able to communicate on some level or another, through facial expressions, auditory signals, sign language... I'm sure you get the point. Unless the person on the other end is braindead, they can communicate, and that communication translates into knowledge/information, meaning that unless you're going to just stop trusting every single soul you encounter you're pretty much going to have to deal with acquiring something no security suite or firm can sell you, called common sense!
What does that have to do with screen readers? Have you ever stopped to consider the many actions that screen readers, all of them, perform, by default, on a computer? How many of them are similar to what addware and spyware do? Run in the background once allowed to do so? Install other pieces of software? Gather information? Log said information? Ability to send that information elsewhere? Alter the behavior of a piece of software? Send a restart command to your computer? All of these are things I've seen screen readers and spyware, both capable of doing. Truth is, in many places and for many reasons, spyware, addware and stealware are legal pieces of software that are allowed and, in some cases, may already come bundled with your PC!
No, I'm not saying security isn't important... I'm saying security isn't an honest answer on either side of the fence where screen reader discussion is taking place. Don't tell me JAWS is more secure than NVDA because it's closed; it belongs to a company that is doing goodness only knows what with it behind closed doors. Don't tell me NVDA is more secure than JAWS because it's open-source; it belongs to anyone who can modify it, essentially making it a free-for-all that, unless i'm a dev who can examine it closely, can really do just about anything I might not want it to do. At the end of the day, all you're left with is common sense and your own judgment, or hiding under your bed and never coming out if you have none of the former. Information leaks; it's going to continue to leak because everyone wants it! Knowledge is power, and I know no person in life who wants to be powerless.
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