IBM making Mozilla’s Firefox accessible
A recent press release announces an effort by IBM to make Mozilla’s Firefox web browser more accessible. Firefox, long praised for its security, speed and extensibility has been condemned for its failure to work with access technology. IBM announces that it has added support for Microsoft Active Accessibility to version 1.5 of the Firefox browser. Theoretically, this should make Firefox as accessible as Internet Explorer.
In addition to Microsoft Active Accessibility, IBM has added a feature they are calling Accessible DHTML Technology, which will give disabled users access to advanced web functionality created using client side technologies like Javascript and the Document Object Model. Such functionality has not only been inaccessible, but most often prooved to be a hinderance to users of accessible technology.
As a web developer who specializes in developing applications for the blind and disabled, I have long been a secret champion of the Firefox browser, unable to let my Firefox flag fly. Firefox takes web standards and security seriously, it’s light and fast, and its extensibility provides a developer like me a whole host of tools that make developing standards compliant web applications a breeze. However, because of its lack of compatibility with the most common access technologies available today, I wake most mornings feeling like the world’s biggest hypocrite, testing my web applications using sofware that my primary audience cannot even use.
Hopefully, at the least, IBM’s contributions will allow me to leave for work in the morning using my front door. Maybe I’ll even be able to wear my Firefox t-shirt on top of my cableknit this fall instead of hidden underneath it. (Actually, I take that back. My wife just informed me that would be a big fashion no-no.) Ideally, I’ll be able to add advanced and accessible client-side functionality to my web applications that will work in Firefox and not break the application in Internet Explorer. But let’s all face reality. The most probable scenario is that Microsoft just read this press release, and is busy trying to shoehorn their own version of Accessible DHTML Technology into their much touted 7.0 release of Internet Explorer. And the browser war rages on…