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Simc Dev

Posted on • Originally published at cmsinstallation.blogspot.com

12 Must Have Browser Extensions for Developers

One of the cool things about using Chrome as your default browser is all the extensions you can use. Google Chrome extensions are programs created by different developers that change your browser's functionality. Whether you are a Web Developer or not, thousands of different extensions can help you and make your time on Chrome more easy and enjoyable.

1. Daily Dev

Daily Dev is one of the best sources for programming news. There are lots of helpful articles that can help anyone out. This extension is awesome because whenever you open a new tab, Daily Dev will open itself. And if you're wondering, no, it isn't going to slow down your computer or laptop. It runs smoothly, and it keeps you up to date with what's going on in the community.

2. LastPass

Imagine having to remember 100 different usernames and passwords for different websites. That's where LastPass comes in. LastPass is a password manager in which you can store all of your passwords in one safe place. The only thing you have to remember is your master password. This password lets you go into the vault where all of your usernames, emails, and passwords are stored. LastPass is a lifesaver.

3. Grammarly

This extension is probably the most helpful one. It detects grammar, spelling, punctuation mistakes. There is a small chance of it detecting a false mistake, but it hardly happens. The best thing is that it is free. There is a premium version with a monthly payment as well, which goes more in-depth with your word choice, tone, and style mistakes.

4. Website Blocker

Don't you hate it when you've planned to have a super productive day, and by the end of it, you've rewatched the entire first season of Game Of Thrones. Well, this thing happens to a lot of us. Maybe not as extreme as the example I just gave. But it's a common thing to get distracted with something. So this is where this extension comes in. The Website Blocker extension does exactly what it sounds like. It blocks websites of your choice. You can select, for example, Netflix and block it for a certain amount of time. Let's say you've decided to learn 3 hours today, so you can quickly block all of the sites that you may get distracted with for that time and enjoy a peaceful time studying.

5. ColorZilla

ColorZilla is a beneficial extension that helps you find those amazing colors on a random website. For example, you've found an amazing shade of pink that you would love to add to your portfolio website. With ColorZilla, you can just choose that color, and it will copy it and show it in RGB or HEX. This is a super useful extension for Front End Developers that want to create some amazing and colorful webpages.

6. Тodoist

This extension helps you is plan your day. You can set your studying hours, your break time, or your Game Of Thrones time of the day. It is an essential thing to have your day organized. So todoist is the perfect extension for this.

7. Web Activity Time Tracker

It's a good thing to see how you spend your time. You can think you've been productive, but in reality, you're spending most of your time watching cat videos on youtube. This extension shows you how much time you've spent on a certain website. So it's good to see how you're spending your time in front of the screen and where you need to reduce some of that time.

8. CSSViewer

This is a must-have extension for Front End Developer. It helps you see the CSS that is used on different websites. There is some amazing and unique stuff that would be great to add to your website. So with CSSViewer, you can get the code of the certain part of the website that you want and use it in your creations.

9. Lorem Ipsum Generator (Default Text)

Everyone should know what Lorem Ipsum is. It's the dummy text that you use to see how some text would look on your website. With this extension, you can generate whole paragraphs with as many sentences as you want. It definitely helps you out a lot when u want to add lots of text to your website to see how it looks.

10. Wappalyzer

This is an amazing extension that shows you what other websites are built with. It shows you what CMS a certain website is using, and it also shows you what framework, e-commerce platform, Web Server, and many more things the website of your choice is working with.

11. JSONView

This extension helps you validate and view JSON documents. Another must-have extension for any developer.

12. Clear Cache

Don't you hate it when you've just made some changes to your website, and then it takes some time to see them because your cache isn't cleared. Well, this little extension will save you from that. Just by pressing the icon, your cache clears straight away. And it's always good to have it cleared out often.

Top comments (13)

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jonrandy profile image
Jon Randy 🎖️ • Edited

One of the cool things about using Chrome as your default browser is all the extensions you can use

Every single one of these is also available on other browsers. Some of the functionality provided by them is actually built in to Firefox.

This isn't a criticism of you personally, but people should really stop writing posts as if Chrome has a monopoly on useful browser extensions, because this simply isn't the case. The framework used to write browser extensions is almost exactly the same between browsers - and as a result, most extensions are available for most browsers.

Chrome (and other Chromium based browsers) are - unfortunately - monopolising the browser space. This can only be a bad thing for user choice and for the advancement of browsers in general. This situation is not helped by the endless parade of articles written that refer only to Chrome, when almost everything in the article is also relevant to other browsers.

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matthieu_rolland profile image
Matthieu Rolland • Edited

Chromium based extensions are indeed compatible with all chromium based browsers...(chrome, brave, edge, etc...)

But firefox is not chromium based, I'm not sure you can juste install a chrome extension on firefox, and it's not rare that an extension exists on chrome and not on firefox (and vice versa)

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jonrandy profile image
Jon Randy 🎖️ • Edited

I'm not sure you can juste install a chrome extension on firefox

You pretty much can. I'm a maintainer of an extension. The code is identical between the Chrome and Firefox versions. The only difference is the way the code is packaged up for distribution. A standardisation process took place a good while back to ensure much greater compatibility, and a fairly standard extension API implemented by most browsers.

The fact that it's not rare that extensions exist only on one browser is precisely my point. Most posts are written very much like this one, actively praising Chrome whilst failing to mention that the exact same extensions (or functionalities) are available on other browsers - giving the misleading impression that these browsers are inferior with respect to extensions/add-ons.

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webbureaucrat profile image
webbureaucrat

Extensions are a security risk. You should only use them for tools that need that kind of elevated privilege.

It's a really bad practice to install things like a lorem ipsum generator or a JSON utility when those things are readily available in a way that doesn't compromise your browser.

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cybertron1548 profile image
Cybertron

Mozilla Firefox Developer Edition has most of dev tools built right into them. Awesome recommendations though, cheers

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devsimc profile image
Simc Dev

Cheers

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samuelrivaldo profile image
Samuelrivaldo

Thanks 🙏

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devsimc profile image
Simc Dev

Cheers

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ademking profile image
Adem Kouki

Great recommendations! I would like to add BetterViewer
producthunt.com/products/betterviewer

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keizzmann profile image
The_Keizzmann😁🎹🎹💻

Great recommendations, wappalyzer is a must. It helps me a lot to find tools for specific features i wish to have in an application that i've seen in previous apps.

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devsimc profile image
Simc Dev

Cheers

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timthom profile image
Thomas Månsson

I would recommend HTTPie instead of JSONView as an browser extension.

httpie.io

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devsimc profile image
Simc Dev

Cheers