Accessibility
Hello,
I am visually impaired and using a screen magnifier/reader called ZoomText. This is the most popular program of its kind in the world.
In Firefox 53, ZoomText is able to speak out loud texts inside the browser. But with Firefox Quantum, ZoomText can't read anything. Obviously, some accessibility features have been stripped in the new browser. I hope you can restore them so that I can migrate to the new browser. Thank you.
Regards,
Des
All Replies (5)
Did you make sure that Prevent Accessibility Features was unchecked in 57+ as been having issues with processor and ram ? So this is what I say to turn it off but you will need to turn it on and then monitor the 2nd part. Please : go to the Firefox 3 Bar Menu --> Options --> Privacy & Security panel and under Permissions check (put a tick in the box) the setting to Prevent Accessibility Services from accessing your browser.
Monitor in Task Manager. Should stay below 2 gigs. If excessive then do below and monitor and change if need to...Test and go up again , go back down, it will eventually get a zone you and it can live with.
Go to the 3 Bar Menu then Options --> General --> Performance and untick everything. change the recommended size lower then see how it runs. Note: 1 = No Multiprocessor = slow again. Try 2 Restart Firefox after making these changes please.
Note : Hardware Acceleration is for Video Card, Monitor to see if remain off or to turn back on.
I think you may want to contact them to find out if they are making it compatible with Firefox. I do not see this as a Extension so no idea as their page does not hold much information that would be useful to me to figure out at all if it worked in any version of Firefox. https://www.zoomtext.com
There is a built in +/- Zoom can move controls to where you want. also this seems to be back : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/theme-font-size-changer/
Might want to search the above in the search box to see if any voice/speech extensions are around.
This is all could find : https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/accessibility-features-firefox-make-firefox-and-we
To submit suggestions for new or changed features, may I suggest: Feedback: https://qsurvey.mozilla.com/s3/FirefoxInput/ and/or https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/add-ons
Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.
Hi please make sure that you are using the latest version of ZoomText, which should be compatible with Firefox 57 https://www.zoomtext.com/help/releasenotes/
As you know, you are using an old version (53) of Firefox: Open the 3-bar menu > Help (question mark at bottom) > About Firefox, to update.
Modified by Scribe
ZoomText 10 and Firefox 53 work fine together. Mozilla dropped some accessibility features when upgrading Firefox from 53 to Quantum. There is no fault on the user’s part, but the user is being penalized. Did you know that it costs a few hundred dollars to upgrade ZoomText to the latest version? For ZoomText users who do not have such money throwing around, is Mozilla implying that they should switch to another browser? If Mozilla is eager to lower the accessibility hurdle facing the visually impaired, it should make Quantum backward compatible with ZoomText.
Stop implying, do the answers given and answer questions or this will just keep moving to page 3 and never seen again.
Best is probably to use the Firefox 52 ESR release and stay with that release until all issues with accessibility and multi-process have been sorted out.
See also:
- /questions/1199355 Is Firefox Quantum Accessible to Visually Impaired Persons Using JAWS?