I just created a new search set combining all the defaults “News” plugins.
It seems the only plugins that are actually working are BBC News and Yahoo News.
Opening the single URL in the log for each news service confirm that there are many results matching the search term (a controversial politician’s name).
Am I missing something? Seems this should be frequently used feature.
DEVONagent does not control those search engines and whether they’re up and running or producing results. With more and more people choosing AI over traditional search engines, I would imagine disruptions will continue as they scramble to compete.
Development will have to assess this.
Some of the plug-ins need an update.
Do you ever take a day off? 
So, it’s not just me then. I’m just surprised there aren’t more posts on this topic.
How does the plugin differ from adding the site, such as news.google.come or Reuters.com?
Bing also. This one seems like kind of a big deal.
Are the big search providers purposely blocking the kind of access provided by services like DA?
I’m very new to using DA.
What’s… a… “day off” ?!? 
Are the big search providers purposely blocking the kind of access provided by services like DA?
We have no evidence it’s intentionally blocking us. Google made major changes at the beginning of 2025 that affected DEVONagent (and others as well). Other sites and search engines are likely just evolving with tech and those changes could certainly have an effect.
Are you - DEVONtechnologies - aware of the specific problem with Bing, and working on a solution?
To me, this seems the most impactful plugin issue.
To me, this seems the most impactful plugin issue.
Why do you think that? Google has an 89% market share; Bing has ~4%.
I can’t speak for what development is specifically working on, but they are aware.
Well, market share is a bit of a misleading metric; the issue is effectiveness of search and quality of results, where well-resourced alternatives to Google have an especially significant role to play. I don’t use DA much for general searches, so can’t comment on whatever’s going on with Bing; my usage is primarily academic, where the repositories I use continue to play well with DA plugins. But DA does have the potential to be, and where the plugins work already is, the killer news-scraper app we all desperately need, so keeping the plugins for major search engines and news sites up to date with the chaos of those operations’ internal transformations is a worthy undertaking for the maintenance of DA’s lead over the AI slopbuckets into which web search threatens to enshittify itself.
And if we had a million monkeys all typing for infinity…
Time and resources are finite and we do the best we can with them. Development will assess what’s needed.
I can’t argue that google is far and away more popular. But I would argue that the reason is quality of results. It’s mostly just critical mass. Personally I use google only as a last resort, and rarely get a better result when I go there. I mostly use Duck Duck Go and Bing.
I research for me is pretty casual, and I would very much like to replace a lot of my general searching with DA. The fact that of the top 2 search engines, only google is accessible, is a real issue for me. I’d be surprised if I’m alone. I’m looking at DA in large part because I don’t like using google or supporting Alphabet. I like supporting DEVONtechnologies and any search tool that’s not google.
That’s another area where I thought DA would be a no brainer. That most of the news plugins (I only get results using BBC and Yahoo) is the second most serious issue - for me. But I guess I’m an outlier.
I’m disappointed in myself for not finding these issues earlier in my trial. I was absolutely planning to purchase, until I realized the news plugins were mostly broken, and when I started looking into that I found the problem with Bing (I was mostly just using the web search sets, not realizing that none of my results were coming from Bing).
I’ll probably still buy a license, but I am rethinking.
Ah. Just noticed the 14 day refund policy. So I guess I’ll at least continue my “trial”.
As I mentioned, development is aware.
Is there any way of tracking whether / when Bing or the News plugins are again functional, without buying a license first? It doesn’t seem likely anyone’s posting about it here. Is there a change log?
See release notes of next maintenance release.
Yeah, that’s what I’m looking for. I’m sure they’re posted in an entirely logical spot, but I haven’t found it yet.
I realize it’s probably on the help menu like it is in DT, but I haven’t bought a license (yet) and my trial’s run out.
Honestly, the more I look, the more I’m convinced the release notes are only available from inside the app.
Look inside the PDF or ePub for the chapter covering Release Notes.
That doesn’t really address the issue. I’m looking for a way to monitor for when my main concerns have been addressed, without buying a license while the product is (for me) somewhat broken.
I do realize that I’m probably not the target audience for DA, and I’m not really complaining. Right now it just doesn’t do a couple of things that are important to me. I’d like to watch the release notes and buy a license when those issues have been addressed.
Updates are announced on our socials and our blog.