ESET Developers, Realtime Alert Notifications are Totally inaccessible to Screen Readers

[Al Puzzuoli 0]

Hello,

I recently purchased a two year subscription for NOD32, and am currently running version 7.0.302.0. I am blind, and use the Jaws for Windows screen reader. I have been an Eset user on and off for years, and have always enjoyed working with Nod32 due in part to the fact that your UI has mostly adhered to Windows standards and has been quite accessible.

This still holds true for the most part, but I have found one area where this appears not to be the case, and it's concerning, because it's arguably the most important element of the UI. I'm referring  to realtime alerts. I tested this by playing with a zipped version of the Eicar test file. First, I opened the zip, and then attempted to open the txt file itself. Of course, Nod32 prevented  the file from opening, and an alert popped up on screen. However, the alert  did not appear to be a standard windows dialog, it wasn't accessible in the alt tab order, and there doesn't seem to be any option  to have alerts displayed as standard notification balloons. So from my perspective, I opened the zip, attempted to open the Eicar.txt file, and absolutely nothing happened. Of course in this instance, I know that Nod32 prevented  the file from opening; However, I find the fact that I will have no feedback whatsoever if I stumble on a bug in the wild to be disconcerting to say the least.

Granted, I should have tested this when I was using the trial version; However, I am also evaluating the business endpoint version at work, which does display accessible alert balloons, at least under Windows 8. Also, when I used to use the home version several years ago, alerts did appear in the alt tab order, and were relatively accessible if I turned off graphics mode. Something has changed in the last few iterations of the home version and now the realtime alert component is seriously broken in terms of accessibility. Is there anything  I can tweak in settings to make this better? If not, any chance  of some help in a future update?

Thanks,

Al

Edited November 26, 2013 by Al Puzzuoli

[Marcos 5,074]

Try pressing Ctrl+G to switch to non-graphical mode.

[Al Puzzuoli 0]

Hi Marcos,

Thanks for the reply. Do I press control+g right from the main window, or after pressing f5 for advanced setup?

Is control+g the same as turning off graphics under the user interface section? If so, then I've already tried that to no avail.

Thanks,

Al

[toxinon12345 32]

your UI has mostly adhered to Windows standards and has been quite accessible.

 

Marcos, probably he refers to new TOAST notifications

Edited November 28, 2013 by toxinon12345