----- Original Message -----
From: "John Isige" <gwynn@...>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Sunday, November 05, 2017 5:42 AM
Subject: Re: [nvda] Firefox 57 etc


My apologies, I misunderstood your rhetoric comment. That's what comes
of trying to do two things at once. Also to be clear, I'm not saying we
shouldn't question changes. I think it's fine and valuable to ask what
changes are being made and why they're being made. But there are some
people who seem to assume they're almost always bad and are the start
down a path for changes for the worst, it seems to me, and that's what I
object to. As you say, and a few others have reported this here as well,
the new Firefox with the option set correctly seems to be mostly fine,
if slow. And if not, as you've also pointed out, we have other browsers
to use until it gets straightened out.


I also think it's valuable to point out that these aren't ham-fisted
sledgehammer changes, they are perhaps fairly large changes sure, but
they're not being done just because, they're being done for a perfectly
valid security reason. I figured I'd better provide examples instead of
just telling people it's an issue, now we can all see the potential
problems with code injection. I should add, I'm really glad the new
update is mostly fine, though I might use the extended release myself. I
use Firefox as my daily browser and haven't really found any of the
others to my liking for various reasons, though I need to play with them
some more because of course accessibility keeps improving for them.


Man I remember the days of IE 6 or 7 when JFW's Firefox support wasn't
that great, and IE updated and JFW hadn't caught up yet. Called tech
support and they insisted I couldn't be running the new version of IE
because the new version of IE didn't work with JFW. At least we've got
some pretty decent alternatives nowadays. I'm not even sure if Firefox
was supported yet, it was ages ago when this happened, but I remember I
had all kinds of issues browsing until it got updated eventually. And
that line will stick in my head forever, "you can't be running that",
I'm like "dude it's right here on my machine"! I think I even cranked
speech up over the speakers and made it read the version number. Fun times!


On 11/4/2017 23:45, Ron Canazzi wrote:

Hi John,


Boy, you really like to press home a point. I didn't fundamentally
disagree with you on any of that. In fact, according to beta testers,
Firefox 57 without the check box checked isn't very much different
than earlier versions. In addition, I have begun to use Edge for many
things. The only major issue I see with Edge and NVDA is it is a bit
erratic in forms mode. For example on the Send Space page where you
have to click on buttons and make descriptive editions if desired,
NVDA keeps slipping in and out of forms mode. I bet they nail this one
down either later this year or early next year. I can use Edge for
anything now including forms and similar editable pages--with some
difficulty.


I only objected to your wholesale condemnation of all blind people who
raised questions about changes in accessibility.



On 11/4/2017 9:57 PM, John Isige wrote:

Ah. Rhetoric. Like this.


http://blog.trendmicro.com/mozilla-firefox-exploit-enlists-pcs-advanced-botnet/



And this:


https://www.welivesecurity.com/2015/08/11/firefox-under-fire-anatomy-of-latest-0-day-attack/



The reason you're not hacked any more than other people is because
Firefox updates for security, i.e. the very thing people are complaining
about now because it's updating in a way that happens to mess with
screen readers. It's true that, so far as I know, neither of these
injection attacks are the kind of code injection screen readers do.
That's because screen readers are local though and not using something
like JavaScript, but that's about the only difference. And you should
particularly note from the second link that the particular code
injection attack being discussed there allows reading and writing of
local files as well as uploading them. Have a credit card number written
down somewhere for easy access? Get infected by that thing and it could
very well be uploaded to a site for somebody else to try and use.


My point is, injection attacks happen, they're bad, and this is another
way to try and stop them. There's a real purpose to this change, whether
or not anybody happens to like or agree with it. It's not just rhetoric,
there are real examples of it, as I've just demonstrated. There's also a
way for screen readers to deal with browsers that doesn't involve code
injection, I believe this is how NVDA deals with Microsoft Edge because
Edge doesn't allow code injection. That's also part of why everybody's
still working on Edge accessibility, sure, that way doesn't materialize
overnight, it has to be implemented and I'm sure issues have to be
worked out with it, e.g. if a browser needs to expose certain things it
doesn't currently.


I get that the change Firefox is making isn't ideal for us, I'm just
saying, there's a reason for it, and there are a lot of alternatives to
using the new Firefox, including an older accessible version of Firefox
if you don't feel like trying to change browsers and use Chrome or Edge
until better accessibility for the new version of Firefox is worked out.
There's no reason to assume that the sky is falling and that nothing
will ever get better because clearly, Firefox is going down the road of
hating blind people and ignoring them entirely and thus we're all
crewed.


On 11/4/2017 19:13, Ron Canazzi wrote:

Hi John,


Besides all that rhetoric, Mozilla has set the 'disable all
accessibility features' item to unchecked by default. As long as you
don't turn it on by accident, there shouldn't be any problem. I don't
know what the chance of you getting infected or hacked by something is
when this item is turned off, but I would imagine it isn't very high
because I don't see any greater number of blind people getting hacked
proportionately than sighted folks. Still there is an issue with
security now of days and it probably won't get any better for years.
Some people have already tested 57 with screen readers and were
careful not to check the box and things seem reasonably good.



On 11/4/2017 6:08 PM, John Isige wrote:

If you'd read all of the stuff in Freedom Scientific's post, you would
have seen this link.


https://www.marcozehe.de/2017/09/29/rethinking-web-accessibility-on-windows/




Code injection is a horrible idea from a security standpoint and
also a
coding one. It was something that was necessary back in the day, but
probably isn't anymore. So that was a change that probably should have
happened long before now anyway. It makes sense as a change and it was
going to cause this issue whenever it happened. Not only do we have
several accessible browsers to choose from, we have an accessible
version of the one with the problem and one assumes work will be
done to
make the current version accessible. Seriously, do you people do
anything other than bitch about stuff? I'm beginning to wonder. I get
that the transition is annoying, sure. but some times there are
actually
good reasons to change things, however annoying the transition happens
to be, and honestly, this one isn't all that bad in the grand
scheme of
things.


On 11/4/2017 4:14, Brian's Mail list account via Groups.Io wrote:

Indeed, However I am critical of Mozillas handling of this. Its not
often that the makers of Jaws put up a page about the pitfalls and
also criticise a particular company for being unthinking about their
policy toward the VI community.

Let us hope that somebody in the management at that organisation
takes
us more seriously, however I'm not holding my breath, and I'm not
sure
if jamie working for them will help much if the culture is going down
the road toward making all software inaccessible to stop hacking. He
is probably not the most tactful person in the world as indeed
neither
am I. I can now afford to grow old disgracefully. Age has its
advantages as history does tend to repeat itself and we have all been
here before, sadly.
Brian

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----- Original Message ----- From: "никита тарасов"
<ntarasov29@...>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2017 6:41 PM
Subject: Re: [nvda] Firefox 57 etc



Hello. I don't think it's worth installing Mozila 57 until she's
fully
available to NVDA.
Отправлено из Почты для Windows 10

От: Brian's Mail list account via Groups.Io
Отправлено: 3 ноября 2017 г. в 21:17
Кому: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Тема: Re: [nvda] Firefox 57 etc

Yes I saw a message on the issues list from James, about some fixing
for
version 58, so maybe it will get resolved from the currently unusable
state.
Its new users of any screenreader I feel sorry for, especially where
its a
shared machine and the sighted member just lets firefox update.
There are a couple of other issues. It disabled both my add ons,
navigational sounds and Ublock Origin ad blocker and even when I put
the
version 52 back on I had to re download both add ons and install them
again.
Not only that but nvda after the update could not read the screen of
the add
ons manager, I had to exit firefox completely and go back in
again to
see
if they had installed correctly, I'm sure this was not the case prior
to up
and down dating the version I had, which was 55. How also does one
set
52 to
get security updates without letting it update to 57 as I see it
wants
to do
till I set updates to no, ie not recommended.
Brian

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----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Mendoza"
<lowvisiontek@...>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2017 10:31 AM
Subject: Re: [nvda] Firefox 57 etc

Hi, Brian


I have the same issue on the other machine, and that is the reason
why I
keep to shift instead to use the Firefox ESR version 52 but for
now I
will
stick to this version because there is likely more stable in
performance
and never has a problem. And, once the issue has fix maybe I
could go
for
to use and test it again.


Robert Mendoza

On 11/3/2017 6:00 PM, Brian's Mail list account via Groups.Io wrote:

With regard to this version of Firefox, and in addition to what
Joseph
posted about it. Here is what me acting as the average unaware
updater
found.
After installation only the menus work, no content on the page is
readable, you cannot go into any browse or focus mode. You just
here
unknown.
Now there may well be some kind of setting that can be altered,
I do
not
know, to achieve what he got, slow but functioning. I could not
find
any
option for this. Not only that but it seemed to lose almost half
of my
bookmarks as well.

So unless they fix this on the release version anyone trying to use
Firefox 57 when it comes out with the latest version of nvda, and I
am up
to date with the master branch here, will not be able to do so
unless
they know how to make it work.
If these people are employees then they will probably need the
permission
of an admin to reinstall a version like 55, and turn off auto
updates. I
have reinstalled 52 in actual fact and got my bookmarks back as
well as
functionality. To my mind the makers of Firefox at the current
state of
play should be able to see if screenreading software is on a
machine
in a
similar way to Adobe reader or Jarte does, and prevent it from
updating
to an unworkable version.
I cannot understand why they have not done this.

Anyone care to comment?
Brian

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