Hello.
This is a review about using a voice recognition product to control a web browser. Now if you have and use Windows 10 on a regular basis, this might not be of much interest to you. However, many users are not able to fully utilize the features of Windows 10 for a number of reasons. One being that Windows 10 is incredibly hard to use for people that have a hard time learning how to use things.
This review is about using a speech recognition product that has been on the market for a long time and can be used with almost any operating system or browser. The product I'm using is Dragon naturally speaking. There are several versions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, you can find versions 10, 11, 12 and 13 available from different vendors. Any of these work very well and there is little reason to claim the latest version is always best.
Prices vary, but yo can find some early versions under $99 for reputable vendors. Consider investing in a decent headphone with microphone.But it does not ha veto be costly.
Now I want you to know that most of this post was done with dictation from Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It was version 10 and it was upgraded to version 11 for free. I think I bought it for under $100 somewhere online. Before that I had been using an earlier version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking which was bundled with an old version of WordPerfect for Windows. That gives you an idea of how old this product is. It is a very mature product and is well supported by the company. Of course, it's not free. And you have to spend a little bit a time learning how to use it. It does have a learning curve. Fortunately, the company is not going to change everything once in a while just to annoy you. They do not have the Microsoft mentality. They really want people to use their product to be productive and not have to be constantly relearning what they already know. If you know how to talk, you will be able use this product.
If need be, there are some add-ons you can stick into your browser that will make it easier to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking. But you don't really have to do that.
This is a review about my personal experiences of using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for several years. The reason I bring this up now is that people are getting all excited about how wonderful Windows 10 is with its speech recognition program built-in. Big deal. It's of little help if you can figure out how to use Windows 10. And even so, the speech engine in Windows 10 Will Dr. you crazy with its improper and inappropriate responses. I really don't like it to be told that I should ask for information about the Grand Canyon. I don't want information about the Grand Canyon.
But Dragon naturally speaking never nags me about my lack of knowledge of the Grand Canyon or anything else for that matter. All it does is remind me that I need to have the microphone well-positioned and that I need to work on some of the maintenance features once in a while. The program requires some time to itself to update the vocabulary and profile of the specific user. Yes, Dragon naturally speaking is user specific. I don't find that a problem because I'm the only one that uses it.
Now about web surfing. You can always use inside of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. You can ask you to click on a link and it will click on a link if there's one available.
To help even idea about what you can do with this product and you wrap browser, here is a video that has been prepared by them to help people understand that you don't have to use the Windows 10 product if you are willing to invest a little bit of money and time into a product that is been proven to be effective over the years.
Here is the link:
Use Dragon to control your Web Browser.My own personal experience with this product has been mostly favorable. The bad part is about their very strict rules about the use of the license key and having it installed on only one computer at a time. It is a real hassle to move the program over to a new computer. So you may want to think very carefully about porting the program over to another computer. It can be done, but you have to consult with the support people and find out what it is they expect you to do.
Nevertheless, I was able to get this on to a new installation of Windows XP on this machine. Although I had install the software earlier and had to reinstall the operating system, somehow I was able to install the Dragon product again and enter the license key again and somehow it was able to activate property. I'm not sure how that works. Maybe they have a secret place where they hide the cookie in your hard drive, or something like that. Anyway, they did not nag me about trying to install on a separate computer. I am glad they got that figured out.
Overall, I'm very happy with the product and I use it on a daily basis. Using this product makes my computer use much more pleasurable and productive in my personal life. At my age says not too many things I can do because of my health limitations. I appreciate having something that makes it a little bit easier to work with computers. Although I have had many years experience using computer systems, I am not able to type fast and my vision is lot not allow me to pick up a lot of things that are visual clues. So having this speech recognition product is one of the best investments I've ever made.
Well, it's time to stop dictation here. Some kind of background program is complaining about something that I don't understand. But the problem is not coming from Dragon NaturallySpeaking, it's coming from some of those crazy programs that run in the background and claim to help improve my computer experience and proceed to annoy me with messages that pop up on my screen all I'm trying to dictate something.
End of my post. I'm going to turn off the microphone now.