Hello I am Kevin Jones in Madison Wi, state side, and just got avast today, recomended by a friend. I’ve heard good things about it, except it doesn’t work with screen readers (for blind users) very well. Basically all of the screens except the startup screen and the setup screen both standard and enhanced aren’t readable by screen readers. I bought the pro version so I could get the command line scanner, but that still doesn’t help with setting up the settings for the main interface i.e. if you want email scanned etc. though you can change that from the system tray, though you couldn’t set a schedule with th ecommand line scanner unless you wrote a batch file and stuck it in a task scheduler. The problem I’m guessing is that all the screens in the gui avast are bitmapped, screen readers can’t read anything bitmapped. Fortunately if a virus is detected, the screen asking what you want to do and options is a normal screen that screen readers like Jaws could read just fine.
Kevin, very wellcome to avast forums.
By the end of September will be (thanks God) the release of version 4.5 of avast.
It will be an option for ‘skinless’ application, so you could change the ‘style’ like any other Windows application.
Right now, you can set the majority of the things by your avast4.ini file (see ‘Settings’ on my signature).
Why the Enhanced interface can’t be read by ‘screen readers’ as it is a normal Windows application with menus, buttons and so on?
Even you use the command line scanner, you should configurate your on-access protection. Fell free to ask anything you want about avast configuration… we can guide you and you could bet on this. 8)
Hello It’s me again. I posted 2 weeks ago about making avast accessible to screen readers, wondered if any thoughts had come up, as I see no new posts. I think it’s something that has to be done as pat of tryin to be the best anti-virus program out there.
I found that some of th esettings can be changed in the .ini file, but 1 not all, and 2 it’s hard to find. not an option for the non-power user.
also found that some but not all of the settings can be changed if you right click on th esystray item and open th protection item.
I still believe that the main interface must be accessible.
Hello!
Avast 6 is working very well with most screen readers. Maybe you should try it.