Is there a difference between isAnonymous and checking for a role assigned to the Anonymous user on the ACL in Xpages? Because of server security settings, I'm unable to test as Anonymous in Dev. I would like to change the system to be role based so I can just assign myself the Anonymous role, but my manager has misgivings as he would prefer to stick to built in functionality instead of going to a role based approach.
Take a local replica of your app. When you pick "Preview in Browser" for any local XPage -> you are Anonymous.
And yes there is a difference.Even if you use a role in a database you don't get close to anonymous experience. As anonymous all adressbook lookups should fail as well as other ACL protected stuff.