How many people here try to use DEVONagent as their default browser? If you do, do you have any suggestions for use or tips?
DEVONagent has some very cool features, but there also seem to be a few things missing. Stability is also in question at times. In two days I have DA crash on me about 4 times. Just dissapears randomly when browsing or clicking on links.
Thanks in advance.
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Bill
Suggestions are welcome. There will be future enhancements of DEVONagent. Keep in mind, though, that the primary purpose of DEVONagent isn’t necessarily to become the overall “Gee Whiz” browser, but to facilitate searching and capture of information from the Web.
I don’t see any difference between the stability of Safari and DEVONagent’s browser under OS X 10.5.1. I’ve got DA’s Preferences > Web unchecked for blocking ads. Fortunately, the sites that I normally visit don’t plague me with popup ads, so I rarely see any.
I prefer the DA browser’s Tabs behavior to that of Safari. I keep 6 tabs set, 4 for sites that I always want available and 2 blank tabs for browsing other sites from my Safari bookmarks list.
I also prefer DA’s options for capturing information from Web pages via contextual menus – rich note,PDF, HTML page or WebArchive – to any other browser than the one built-in to the DT applications. I’ve got a lot more sites bookmarked in my DT Pro Office database than in my Safari bookmarks list, so when I’m working with the database bookmarks I’m usually using the built-in database browser to capture rich text notes.
I rarely capture WebArchives or HTML pages, for reasons that I’ve often noted in other posts. So the fact that WebArchives are more subject to the remaining flaky behavior in the version of WebKit introduced by Apple with Safari 3 usually doesn’t create problems for me. Perhaps Apple will improve WebKit stability in a future update.
I keep a copy of Firefox on my computer only because I occasionally have to access a couple of governmental sites with “secure” areas that only recognize the recent versions (but not older versions) of IE for Windows, or Firefox. That’s shoddy Web site administration, but that’s the way the world is. 
The sites that I really want to be secure, such as my banking and credit card sites, accept access from Safari and DEVONagent.
Sometimes I designate DEVONagent as my default browser, sometimes it’s Safari. Depends on what I’m doing. If I want to add new browser bookmarks, Safari is default.
OK, I’m going to vote Yes as default for now because I really want to put DA through its paces, and feel the pain so to speak. I love the built in stuff to add pages to DEVONthink, and I also like the minimalist feel. I tend not to get crazy with browser plugins and customization because it flips me out when I go to another computer and don’t have the same functionality.
However, all that being said, I’ve owned DA for a few years now and I rarely use it, or have rarely used it. For various reasons I tried Yojimbo for a bit to replace DEVONthink, but OCR, e-mail archiving, and finally spotlight search have definitely won me back no question.
I’ve decided to take on DA and learn it. I do tons of Google searches for research and for problem solving, and anytime a better result can be acheived I’m on board.
Adoption rates for DEVONagent would be far higher (IMHO) if the product were better understood in general. The browser is a great gateway in, and the amazing search ability might just keep users loyal.
Heck, I just exported my NetNewsWire feeds and impoted them into DA and set them up as a search set, and the results are very cool.
I bought DEVONthink for 10 or 15 users in my company, and a few are adopting it, especially now with OCR and e-mail archiving, but I have a hard time imagining they’ll adopt DA. While very powerful, I can’t say it is very warm and inviting for the average joe.
I think I’ll do a video on DA, and I’ll try to use some real-world scenarios from my life, hopefully stuff people can relate to (outside the worlds of acedemia).
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Bill
While DA is useful specifically for researching and saving targeted searches (IMO), it is not up to current browser standards.
When it becomes more like Safari or FireFox, I’ll be able to use it as my default. I dislike the layout and UI so much, I rarely touch it currently.
Just my opinion.
DevonAgent is a specialized tool. It’s great for my research because I can tailor searches so specifically with the Boolean operators. But it’s slower than Safari and not nearly as flexible for general Web browsing.
Robert, Jacksonville, Florida
I have DA set as my default browser because it’s always open anyway, and I use it from DTP frequently. I do a whole lot of web searching, and DA is my primary tool for doing so. In a typical day, I’m in DA 60% of the time, and other browsers 40%.
For a while I tried to use DA was my primary browser. Worked ok, but I really missed the ability to make bookmarks. So I decided to let it do what it was best at – search – and use other browsers for what they are best at – browsing!
Now I use Safari for general browsing and bookmarking, FireFox when I have to, and DA for all my searching needs.