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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5d
NVAccess and the slow Erosion of trust: I still believe that NVDA is the best available screen reader, and I still donate monthly. These are just a chronicle of decisions that have made me go... Huh. What? stuff.interfree.ca/2026/05/20/nvaccess-and-the-slow-erosion-of-trust.html
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Amir @amir@dragonscave.space
5d
@fastfinge Very interesting read, and thanks for putting it together. In particular, the "on-device image description" section piqued my interest as I thought, and mentioned several times on Mastodon, that with such a poor output quality, it shouldn't have found its way into alphas in the first place.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5d
@amir I agree. But I do think it was worth exploring. In the same way I wrote my proof of concept AI text to speech addons. Without actually making them, I wouldn't have fully understood what a bad idea that is, and why it's a bad idea. I would have loved to see NVDA develope a prototype on-device image description addon. Then maybe realize it wasn't good enough and scrap it. But of course, as an addon, someone else could pick up the work if they thought they could salvage it. Because it was in core, now it's removed, and nobody else can hack on it even if they want to.
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Amir @amir@dragonscave.space
5d
@fastfinge Agreed. But I even faced difficulty, and soft criticism, communicating the poor output of the feature to NVAccess. I was under the impression that they wanted me, and others, not to expect much from a feature like that, while praising its privacy-focused, on-device aspects.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5d
@amir Yes. And I experienced hard criticism for even discussing a security feature in public. This, too, is a problem. Is NVAccess under funding pressure? Are they struggling to get grants, and public criticism of them is endangering that? Repeat it with me, everyone: I'm probably missing context, so I'll just have to trust that NVAccess knows things I don't.
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NV Access @NVAccess@fosstodon.org
5d
@fastfinge @amir No you are welcome to criticise publically - where it is warranted. You came out yesterday, guns blazing with random thoughts which were completely wrong. We've never shied away from open discussion, but unfounded and completely wrong assertions don't help anyone.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5d
@NVAccess @amir And the assumption that were wrong I and others had corrected long before you got involved. The rest you declined to speak to, other than to complain that the discussion was public.
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