Firefox and VoiceOver - the Mozilla perspective

By Ricky Buchanan • September 1, 2008

Firefox is a web browser which offers an alternative to Safari. There are advantages and disadvantages to each browser, and at the moment one of the big disadvantages for Firefox is that it’s not compatible with Apple’s accessibility API. This means VoiceOver users can’t use Firefox, or need to use incomplete workarounds like FireVox to be able to do so.

Aaron Leventhal is the accessibility lead within the Firefox developer team. He recently wrote a detailed article about the problems with Firefox and OS X’s VoiceOver and why these are so difficult to resolve. There are both technical and political difficulties to overcome, so it’s a big job, but I would very much like to see a Firefox which was more integrated with Mac OS X and hence more accessible.

Firefox being “accessible” wouldn’t just mean it could be used with VoiceOver. It could also be used with the OS X Dictionary, and the programs in the services menu, and other third party programs like Quicksilver which make use of Accessibility APIs to control the programs. It would benefit all Mac users if this could be done.

Website: Firefox and OS X’s VoiceOver

- Ricky Buchanan

Categories: Developers, Information, Primary Switch Users, Users, Vision Impaired, VoiceOver
Tags: features, firefox accessibility, firevox

About the Author

Ricky Buchanan

Ricky Buchanan is 34 years old and the founder and main writer for ATMac. She's bedridden with severe CFS/ME or perhaps a primary mitochondrial disorder - the doctors are not sure. When she's not working on ATMac or her other websites she composes music, listens to audio books, does other disability advocacy, watches TV with her flatmate, and enjoys her cat.

3 Comments For “Firefox and VoiceOver - the Mozilla perspective”

david Clark Apr 13th, 2009 at 12:10 am

I stumbled across this googlinv (faantastic site by the by the way).

I am a dvorak layout user, and I have found that on some macs, firefox 3 shortcut keys stay in qwerty layout (ie cmd l when in rh dvorak is cmd c).

I thought this was limited to non-intel macs, but I just\ a mini and the issue cropped ug again.

have you heard of this ?
Ricky Buchanan Apr 16th, 2009 at 11:18 am

@David: That’s very odd! It’s not something I’ve heard of, no. I suggest you file a bug with the Firefox team and get them to look into it for you.
Alex Jun 21st, 2010 at 2:47 am

It’s pretty interesting. People say ‘freedom of choice’ for web browsers, well for Mac and Linux you really don’t have a choice if you use access technology, and Chrome, Firefox, and Opera are not accessible to voiceover. Kinda like how IE is the monster web browser for windows, Safari is the monster for Mac because it’s the only one VO works with. At least for now and another few years…

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