Better speech synthesis for Orca

I can't believe you searched for it, every time I go to a mainstream website there is a prompt that says "Speech synthethsis is not available in your web browser!" (with a giant yellow exclamation point warning me)

and I think, what the hell is that?

I don't even know what speech synthesis is!

Why would I want to enable it?

I didn't ask for that!

Then before long a giant cookie box prompts me,

taking up literally 25% of the webpage so we can't read it,

demanding that I set my cookie preferences

and I think, what the hell is that?

I don't even know what these cookies are for!

Why would I want to enable them?

I didn't ask for that!

every time I go to a mainstream website there is a prompt that says "Speech synthethsis is not available in your web browser!" (with a giant yellow exclamation point warning me)
Can you give an example? I have never seen that.

I don't even know what speech synthesis is

Orca is a screen reader, it reads all what is on the screen and indicates to the user by voice where the pointer is, click actions, anything useful for someone who isn't able to see or read on a computer screen. A number of people cannot use the computer at all without it.

Orca uses speech synthesis for this. The default voice is highly unpleasant, so having something better looks quite important. I don't need orca now but it might happen in the future.

yes, I see it all the time, and it used to be, that maybe a year ago, I was prompted similarly that my browser couldn't play DRM videos, which of course elicited the same reaction. I always use firefox typically, and actually I generally use the official firefox repository on debian like distributions, which lets me download the latest version (big mistake, but it means all the websites work without issues)

it's bad enough having one software provider distribute terrible software (mozilla themselves)
without having a middle man (like ubuntu) make the software even worse!

I honestly feel like that browser is a google operating system, it's so heavily integrated to third-parties systems, and we have no control over the situation, many of it's "features" are integrated just to appease third-parties? The situation is totally insane. Accesibility features like "speech synthesis" are the least of our problems : D

I attempt to customize it, and "use addons" but it's nowhere near good enough, if we aren't recompiling it from source completely, and analyzing the entire structure, which changes constantly as they update it, we need a completely different paradigm for using the internet, and you can forget about "having an input on development" or "democracy" these ideas are a complete and total fiction. These technologies being forced on people are dangerous.

I see a lot of people doing ethical software development, that express the desire for web services to follow good standards, but the problems are so much bigger. That was a good idea, in literally the 1990's, now we're 30 years ahead, and have only evolved insofar as to possess the same basic ideas?

(that is the true testament to the value, and security, of "the internet" - people's ideas haven't evolved)

Now I have briefly looked into the "speech synthesis" component in "Abrowser"(firefox) (aka firefox-abrowser)

I always attempt to customize my firefox, but using the standard facillities for doing so leave us with a world of components we do not understand built in by default. Firefox even directs it's own developers similarly to it's users to simply build the thing, the monster, the behemoth, this 2.7 GB of source code, and then, after that is done, to start modifying it. ("time to start hacking!")

So there is no reference to "speech synthesis" within the basic settings menu,
(which processes' text, web content, as the users are interacting with them)(privacy red flag!)

Instead this is built into abrowser and firefox by default, and activated,
the setting for it, (at least one) is in about:config in my screenshot.

I always untick recommend new features in the basic settings menu (the general tab)
which still are recommended to me, and presumeably anyone and everyone that uses firefox.

So that's how we are introduced to these features: A prompt displaying "speach synthesis not activated! some features on this web page may not be available"

You know that must have been the case in an older browser version, because on linux, we are always using different browser versions than just the latest thing. Now I'm using the trisquel 12 abrowser 140, (the latest) and I dont see the prompt, and speech synthesis is now activated by default in it.

The firefox help docs about accesibility do not explain how this is implemented, they instead basically define what accesibility features are, and explain that firefox supports them. then directs us to download links for supporting software, as opposed to describing in any relevant way, how the feature is implemented, and how we can configure it.

(if I wanted to restore the old behavior I could get onto an older firefox version where this setting in my screenshot was disabled by default I imagine)

(the setting is in about:config under "speech")