Top 5 Google Chrome Extensions Every Developer Must Know

Google Chrome is one of the most popular web browsers out there in the wild. It has created its special place in the hearts of the Internet users, and you might be using it as your primary browser. One of the reasons for Chrome to be popular among all kinds of users, whether consumers or developers, is the vast collection of plugins and extensions on the Chrome web store. In this post, I will be covering the top 5 Chrome extensions apart from the developer console that is useful for any developer in doing his/her daily job.

1. Firebug Lite for Google Chrome™

Firebug Lite is a tool to be used in conjunction with the Chrome Developer Tools. Firebug Lite provides the same rich visual representation, as we have experienced in the case of Firebug when it comes to HTML elements, DOM elements, and Box Model shading. It also provides some cool features like inspecting HTML elements with your mouse and live editing CSS properties. I feel Chrome Developer Tools are self-sufficient but Firefox users would probably like this.

Download Link: Firebug Lite

2. Speed Tracer (by Google)

You’d love this Chrome extension if you are a web developer obsessed with performance. Speed Tracer is a tool to help you identify and fix performance problems in your web applications. It visualizes metrics that are taken from low level instrumentation points inside of the browser and analyzes them as your application runs. Speed Tracer works on all platforms where extensions are currently supported (Windows and Linux).

Using Speed Tracer, you can get a better picture of where time is getting wasted in your application. For instance, problems caused by JavaScript parsing and execution, layout, CSS style recalculation and selector matching, DOM event handling, network resource loading, timer fires, XMLHttpRequest callbacks, painting, and more.

3. Postman – Rest Client

If you are developing web services for your project, then you will find Postman, your best buddy. Postman helps you become more efficient while working with APIs. Postman is a scratch-your-own-itch project. The need for it arose when one of the developers was creating an API for his project. After looking around for a while, the developer was unable to find the desired tool and Postman came into existence. The primary features added initially were a history of sent requests and collections.

Download Link: Postman

4. Stylebot

Web designers need a way to manipulate CSS on the fly and see the behavior live. Stylebot lets you alter the appearance of any website with custom CSS. You pick an element and choose any changes you want to make from the editor. You can modify the font, color, margins, visibility and a lot more. You can also write CSS manually.

Download Link: Stylbot

5. PageSpeed Insights

Another interesting tool for a web developer is PageSpeed Insight by Google. The PageSpeed Insights extension for Chrome allows you to evaluate the performance of your web pages and get suggestions on how to improve them.

Download Link: PageSpeed Insight

There are lot more tools and Chrome Extensions available for developers to increase their productivity and help them develop and evaluate their project. Above 5 are the plugins which we use on a daily basis and we would like you to try out.

Let us know in comments which Chrome Extensions we have missed out.

Also Read: 8 Useful “Google Play Store Tricks” And Features For Every Android User