Jaws for Windows is a screen reader developed by Freedom Scientific. It is the most popular screen reader among blind computer users. JFW has its own built-in scripting language which allows users to access COM objects imbedded in many modern applications. This allows, for example, Jaws to get table information from Microsoft Word and present the table to the blind person in the most efficient way possible.
JFW also allows blind people access to Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. Ever sense version 3.31, Freedom Scientific has introduced a concept called the virtual cursor, which allows a blind person to navigate a web page much as they would navigate a document in a word processor.
Jaws is a very stable program. Unfortunately, the offscreen model in very recent versions is not as stable as it should be, so sometimes information changes on the screen, and Jaws doesn't know about it. Also, Freedom Scientific's use of Everlock copy protection in Jaws can get annoying at times.