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Development Tools Web Accessibility Compliance Access for Everybody Getting Started with NVDA

NVDA vs Microsoft Narrator?

What are the advantages of NVDA over Window's built in screen reader, Narrator?

1 Answer

Gabrielle Lamarche
Gabrielle Lamarche
8,587 Points

Hi there,

Based on some forums I've read from the last couple of years, some users were saying that Narrator is slower than NVDA. Narrator excels in certain areas as does NVDA. For example Narrator handles frozen apps or universal apps better, but there has been some glitching with the tracking of the cursor when reading. Some users found the commands to be less intuitive, making it harder to operate. However, this was in 2016, so it likely would be caught up by now or perhaps surpassed NVDA's performance. Screen readers can be finicky, so none of them are perfect or significantly better in all areas than others. It seems that each one is stronger in different areas. For example, some are fussy when trying to read MS word documents while others don't support braille. I hope this helps somewhat.