Self-voicing applications can be an important form of assistive technology, useful to those who have difficulty reading or seeing.
Traditionally, talking web browsers have been specially created, as was the case with: A more recent trend has seen the self-voicing capabilities added to mainstream web browsers with free add-ons.
In 2004, Opera Software created a self-voicing and speech-recognition extension for the Windows version of their web browser.
[3] And in 2005 Charles L. Chen devised Fire Vox, an extension that adds speech capabilities to the Mozilla Firefox web browser on Mac, Windows, or Linux.
[4] A second important category are broader self-voicing applications that function as what T. V. Raman calls "complete audio desktops",[5] including editing, browsing, and even gaming capabilities.