Hey Dev.to community,
Like probably a lot of folks here, I spend a ton of time digging through information online. By day, I'm an equity research analyst, which means constantly sifting through news, reports, press releases, you name it. It's easy to get lost in the tabs and struggle to connect the dots later.
I kept thinking there had to be a better way than endless copy-pasting into notes or just hoping I'd remember where I saw that one crucial stat. So, I decided to build something about it.
I created Research Assistant, a Chrome extension designed to be an AI-powered sidekick for web research. The idea is simple: hit the extension button on any webpage, and it uses AI (you plug in your own OpenAI or Anthropic key) to give you summaries and key takeaways.
But the real goal was knowledge management. You can save these insights directly into a personal knowledge base within the extension. You can create different 'workspaces' for projects (e.g., Q1 Earnings, Competitor Analysis) and tag stuff automatically by topic. Later, you can search across everything you've saved.
Key things I focused on:
- Smart Analysis: Get the gist quickly without reading everything top-to-bottom.
- Personal Knowledge Base: Actually retain what you find, organized your way.
- Workspaces & Tagging: Keep different research streams separate and find things easily.
- Privacy First: This was crucial for me. All data stays local on your machine. No tracking, no cloud sync of your research content. It uses your API key to talk to the AI provider, but your saved notes don't leave your computer.
Why I'm posting here:
Honestly, this started as a tool for myself. Some folks in my office tried it and found it genuinely useful, which was encouraging. I even showed it to family members in school/college, and they seemed to like it too (though, you know, maybe they're just being nice!).
Now, I'd love to get some real, honest feedback from a broader tech-savvy community like this one. Is this actually useful? What's missing? Does it break on certain sites?
If you do a lot of online research, whether for work, learning, or personal projects, I'd be grateful if you'd give it a try and let me know what you think.
You can grab it here: Link to Chrome Webstore
Check out some of my other projects here.
Thanks for reading! Looking forward to any thoughts or suggestions.
