Comment by dbbolton | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dbbolton | Hacker News Reader

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Debian has some decent accessibility resources:

https://wiki.debian.org/accessibility https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-accessibility/software

ORCA is probably the strongest FOSS competitor of JAWS:

https://wiki.debian.org/Orca https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/

I don't know whether Debian would be the best choice for OP or not. In my experience, I wouldn't install any new OS for someone unless you are willing and available to help the person until they get the hang of it.

My parents have been using Linux (formerly Debian and now Mint) for over a decade after they got fed up with Windows. I still have to help them from time to time, but I think that would also be the case with Windows, except I would be trying to remove malware instead of showing them how to burn a DVD or what have you.

Malware has not been much of an issue since about the time Vista rolled out. The new model is pretty good and the free Microsoft Security Essentials fills in for 3rd party crapware antivirus packages.

That's not to say that downloading 3rd party applications for Windows doesn't scare me much more than sudo apt-get install...the OS's just invoke different levels of trust in me. Anyway, XP was the last truly vulnerable version of Windows and thankfully it's been laid to rest.

It's more of a PEBKAC scenario. I'm not saying modern Windows isn't secure per se, but they are far less likely to install something they don't want on Mint (perhaps I should have said crapware or bloatware instead), such as questionable toolbars and other "bundled" software.

As someone who has had to clean an infested Windows 7 machine, I disagree; there is no limit on what users can be convinced to install.

There is no anti-virus against human stupidity.

The Microsoft Security Essentials bit would be very true if they didn't end up installing other crapware AV's on top of it, which happens more often than not, at least on the Windows computers I get my hands on. And even using more than one AV they still manage to get their browsers hijacked, etc.

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