I sympathize with GymW, and understand what Mitch_Wagner says. At any time, I have at least four current versions of what I’ll call “major” browsers (let’s say, those with at least 10MM users) on my desktop. Not open at once, but among which I switch for default position. Safari predominates, and it does have its faults and consistently has always done (and as for speed, I think the truth probably lies somewhere between its Jetstream readings—a test that Apple itself devised, so hmmmm…—which make it the fastest, and what Gym_W has to say).
I am also not sure about the status of the clipping extensions that predominate in my research workflow. My problem with Safari (and led to installing the Technology Preview version) was that Evernote Webclipper revealed what is apparently an arcane bug (which, after extensive testing and back and forth with Evernote support, they admitted they were aware of, including its rarity, and were struggling to fix it for a future release) and since I use Evernote with equal frequency to Devonthink, this was a serious problem (especially now that DtO Pro clipping is restricted to the gold release of Safari and not developer versions). In the meanwhile, I am currently using Vivaldi as my default browser—this uses Chrome versions of extensions, and everything is cooking, including my third go-to clipper, Zotero, which was a disaster for awhile on Safari.
I don’t envy developers of productivity tools like Devonthink and Evernote, which are predicated on heavy use of the Internet, and particularly with web access to research resources.
I would attribute the inconsistent behavior of DtPO not to the shortcomings of the extension, but to the vagaries of how a site elects to be configured. Any extension like Devonthink’s, which is scraping content and reformatting it as PDF, has to run the gauntlet of how the site is set to deal, among other things, with Reader View renderings (which may or may not strip out images), with paywall security measures… most sites with page content you want to clip, even when you have logged in as a paid subscriber, interpret the call from DtPO to download content as an attempt to view from someone not logged in. Or the page is simply configured not to give up any more than the URL used to access it. The only alternative in the latter instances, is either to use Mac OS print services to PDF shared to Devonthink and then inside DtPO to add notes and tags and so forth, as well to assign the document to its proper folder in the db, or to open the page in DtPO (signing in in that built-in browser) and saving the PDF from inside the app.
Whatever we do, it seems we are more at the mercy of the developers of the OS and/or the web browsers in question, not to mention Website Management of millions of sites, and less so at those of the hard-working developers who not only have to keep us happy with better and better features and functionality, but have to try to keep pace with the superset of factors out of their control.
