The Most Useful 16 Chrome Extensions for Web Developers

Introduction

The extensive library of open source, often-free, and always handy extensions available through Chrome’s marketplace makes Google Chrome one of the most versatile and well-beloved web browsers among web developers. 

Downloadable in an instant, Chrome extensions serve to build up a custom web browsing UX for each Google account holder. For work, play, or a mix of both, Google Chrome extensions help millions daily to streamline their lives.

Web development is not an easy field to work in. Even with decades of experience in the business – or perhaps having grown up a native coder – we could all use some help from time to time. That’s where our list of the 16 best Chrome extensions for web developers comes in.

Whether the extension makes a proposal of using a super simple function such as screen-shotting, something niche like a Lorem Ipsum placeholder text generator, or service much more complex such as Netscape cookies or exporting them in JSON, these Chrome extensions for web developers have got you covered. 

Best Chrome Extensions for Web Developers

In this article, we’ll walk you through the top 16 extensions you can find for Google Chrome, which are exponentially valuable for engineers, designers, and problem-solvers working as chrome extensions developer in the web development community.

Web Developer

Simply speaking, this is one extension no web developer should be without. It’s in the name, after all! As a Chrome extension, Web Developer adds a handy toolbar to your browser, complete with a whole host of useful tools required by the web developer on a daily basis. These tools allow you to accomplish tasks with the click of a button, such as viewing javascript, resizing images, disabling or enabling pop-ups, and displaying link details, among many more.

ColorZilla

This is one of the best Chrome extensions for graphic designers, illustrators, and marketing teams in the web development industry. ColorZilla is a Firefox import which gives you immediate access to a range of colorful, user-friendly tools, including an eye-dropper, color picker, CSS gradient generator, and a webpage color analyzer (which provides palettes based on any site).

ColorZilla Chrome Extension Features

ColorZilla also keeps a record of recently analyzed colors and palettes, meaning you have ready access to your work at all times. You can use ColorZilla to analyze, copy, and paste color from any website into any other website or application.

WhatFont

Without studying typography for decades, it’s nearly impossible to identify different font styles using the naked eye. You can compare a font you like to reference materials from elsewhere. However, without WhatFont you can never truly be sure of what you’re seeing.

WhatFont Chrome Extension Features

WhatFont is a super helpful Chrome extension that helps you identify what font(s) is/are being used on any website. It doesn’t take up much room and is easy and quick to use, allowing you to save a record of fonts you’ve found on web pages you like for future reference.

Window Resizer

A common issue every web developer comes across regularly is the need to optimize their web pages, sites, and software to function as perfectly as possible across various dimensions and devices. Every few years, a new device emerges onto the market with internet and app-store capabilities which completely rock the web development industry. Window Resizer allows you to quickly and easily test your builds across various screen sizes to ensure it is optimized for use on any device.

Lorem Ipsum Generator

When building sites and tools for web development, it’s crucial to have placeholder text. This helps clients see where their website copy might go, allowing you to continue building your site, app, or tool with text in mind. But generating your placeholder text would be long, tedious, and tiresome. Welcome: Lorem Ipsum Generator.

Lorem Ipsum Generator Chrome Extension Features

The Lorem Ipsum generator extension for Chrome is ace for web developers, allowing you to generate Latin placeholder text directly into your websites. It’s customizable according to paragraph length and number, font size, titles, dates, and more.

Clear Cache

Building websites and developer tools quickly fill up our caches and create a backlog of web browser history. Instead of clearing your cache via the circuitous Google Chrome settings menu, Clear Cache gets it done in a jiffy.

Clear Cache Chrome Extensions Features

It is a highly-customizable web extensions explicitly designed for web developers, which allows you to clear your cache (among other things) with just one click of a button. You can set how to clear your cache historically and whether to clear it for all domains, just some and even exactly what to clear (the whole cache or just elements of it).

Wappalyzer

Ever stumbled upon a website you simply loved the look and feel of, only to come up against the infuriating conundrum of being unable to work out how it was made? Well, all of that is taken care of with this extremely popular browser extension from Chrome. Wappalyzer has been downloaded over 1,000,000 times by developers and is equally highly rated.

Wappalyzer analyzes the various tools – CMS, frameworks, eCommerce platforms, JavaScript libraries – web developers use to create a site so that you can figure out how to replicate it and, in turn, develop your own abilities.

Dimensions

Working out the exact dimensions of a web page, image, or any other site element can be one of the biggest headaches a web developer will likely face. Thankfully, with Dimensions installed, the process is made as simple as one mouse click.

Dimensions Chrome Extension Features

Just enable the Chrome extension and move your mouse anywhere on the screen and you’ll be shown the exact dimensions of the page – on both the X and Y axis, outward from the pointer of your mouse – right there in front of you. This is one of those web development Chrome extensions you didn’t know you desperately needed.

EditThisCookie

While editing, manipulating, blocking, and exporting cookies may not immediately strike you as an essential tool in the toolbox, it’s undeniable that Devs will be searching for this Chrome extension sooner or later. EditThisCookie does exactly what it says on the (cookie) tin.

EditThisCookie Chrome Extension Features

With EditThisCookie, you can edit, delete, add, create, search, protect, export, block, and import cookies on specific pages to any degree necessary. You can even limit the maximum expiration date of any cookie. 

JSONView

Every developer working with REST APIs knows just how frustrating and time-consuming it can be to try and read raw JSON data in a web browser. It’s still possible, naturally, but the whole point of this list of the best Chrome extensions for web developers is to push beyond ‘possible’, and toward ‘simple’. This particular extension – JSONView – allows you to validate JSON documents and view the files in tree-view within your browser, making the whole process as simple as possible.

Check My Links

Internal links, external links, backlinks – with so much content on the internet and such a great benefit to connecting it all (especially for SEO purposes or in academic settings), your websites will likely overflow with hyperlinks. The problem is, without manually going through and clicking on each one, it’s challenging to ensure they all work correctly.

Check My Links Chrome Extension Features

Check My Link; the extension from Chrome does it in one click. The extension crawls through your site, looking for broken links. It highlights links that work in green and the broken ones in red. 

Page Ruler

Page Ruler is a lot like dimensions but allows you to get a little more accurate and detailed than the former extension. Simply put, Page Ruler gives you the exact measurement, down to the pixel, from one point to another as you select. The attachment is super easy to use. Just click on the starting point on your page, and drag it to the next. The extension will draw an orange box over the area, giving you total pixel measurements in length, breadth, height, width, and area.

CSS Viewer

Another Firefox original add-on, CSS Viewer, was migrated across to Google Chrome owing to its wildly simple yet equally effective (and thus popular) design. As web developers, just as you might use Wappalyzer to determine the tools used to make a page, you’ll want to be able to view the CSS of a given page, or element on a page, from time to time.

CSS Viewer Chrome Extension Features

CSS Viewer allows you to do that simply by hovering over any element on your chosen page. As you move your cursor, the CSS Viewer reevaluates and updates the CSS you’re viewing.

Ghostery

Ghostery wasn’t necessarily designed specifically with us web developers in mind, but it’s one of those all-around helpful Chrome extensions that help us out. A robust privacy tool, you can customize Ghostery’s browser interaction to the fine print.

Personally, I use it to block all ads, stop tracking, prevent data collection and block all other page elements which, one: I don’t want to see, and two: slow me down while I’m trying to work.

Ghostery Chrome Extension Features

Ghostery is an ideal Chrome extension for web developers as it ensures a smooth and speedy rate of operations when interacting with your browser.

Hiver

Communication is at the heart of web development. Whether your work depends on the communication channels between you and a wider team or directly between you and a client, keeping track of Gmail emails and working efficiently in-app is key to your success. Hiver was designed as a productivity-enhancing tool for teams that keep track of work via Gmail.

Hiver Chrome Extension Features

It allows you to assign emails as tasks to different team members, track those tasks, give emails tags and notes for others to view (or you to view later), and even automate many of these functions for ultimate efficiency.

Test IE

Test IE, also known as BrowserStack, should be paired with Window Resizer for optimal site testing. Like Window Reiser, Test IE is a Chrome extension designed to allow web developers to test the responsiveness and UX of their newly-designed sites.

Test IE Chrome Extension Features

Instead of displaying your site in different window sizes for different devices, BrowserStack/Test IE displays your site in various browsers (namely: Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer (IE6-IE11). Thus, using the Test IE Chrome extension for web developers, you can ensure that your site works perfectly no matter which browser the user prefers.

Conclusion

Web development is a highly specialized profession that can take a lifetime (and then some) to master. Development tools, client expectations, and the internet change all the time and likely will continue for as long as there are web developers (hence the moniker). 

While we might pride ourselves on our ability to ride the waves of change, always staying one foot ahead of the curve, we shouldn’t have to do so without the proper equipment. After all, would you expect a demolition woman to work with a hammer and chisel when collapsing a high-rise? No! You expect her to have dynamite and a wrecking ball at her disposal!

The same principle should instinctively apply to the web developer community.

From efficiently checking responsiveness for new site designs in different window sizes to reading their CSS or quickly generating placeholder font and color palettes, there’s a Chrome extension for every web developer’s needs. 

Hopefully, this article has brought to your attention at least one that will improve your life.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Best Browser for Devs?

There is no direct answer to this question but  browsers like Google and Mozilla comes with included DevTools with various free and open source add-ons available that can extend the capability of the built-in developer tools.

What is the Most Popular Browser Extension?

To know the most popular browser extension, check out the list of the top 16 most useful chrome extensions for web developers

How Do I Use Chrome as a Web Developer?

Once installing Chrome on your device, sign-in and go to “Developer Tools” > “More Tools.” Right click (if youre on Windows) or Control click (if yorure on Mac) on anything on anything on a web page and selecting “Inspect Element.” The Developer Tools window will appear in the web page youre on.

Is Chrome Good for Developers?

There are numerous options for developers and designers that want to construct or alter their own websites and applications. These useful chrome extensions comes with a plethora of capabilities for developers and designers that want to create or edit online applications.

Should I Use Firefox or Chrome for Web Development?

Chrome includes a variety of web developer chrome extensions for developers and designers interested in creating or updating their own websites and applications. However, Chrome consumes more RAM, causing all other processes to lag. On the other side, Mozilla Firefox Developer Edition (open-source) produces remarkable results, ensuring the fastest possible page loading.

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