Google Chrome is a long-term favorite browser of any in developer, or average internet user for that matter. It’s a lightweight browser that provides great functionality, including extended developer tools that can help those developers who work with full-stack or build website for their living.
The market share for Chrome has been increasing significantly over the last couple of years, and as of February 2015 — might have accounted for over 60% of total internet hits. Google is definitely trying to maintain that position as well, given how good it is.
In past, we’ve covered some popular Chrome extensions for GitHub users, as well as free Chrome extensions and addons for WordPress users and bloggers alike — both of which were quite well received posts, so hopefully today’s post is going to go the same route.
In this post, we are taking a look at some of the most commonly used Chrome extensions that modern developers might find themselves using. If your favorite was left out of the list, please leave a comment in the comment section and we will consider adding it.
Postman
Every web developer works with an API at some point in their career, some do more than others, which is why Postman was built to help developers with building and structuring API’s quickly and efficiently. The primary focus of this extension is to help developers create their own API’s without losing the much needed time.
Web Developer
If you’ve been a Mozilla Firefox user and know of the Web Developer tools on that browser, then you’ll be pleased to know that an official port of those tools have been made into a Chrome extension. Access some unique developer tools that can help you with developing websites, even designing in some cases.
Be Limitless
Limitless is a productivity companion for Chrome. It turns the new tab into a beautiful dashboard to easily identify where your time is wasted and gives productivity suggestions. The dashboard also includes a smart notepad that makes to-dos, reminders and countdowns easy to create and remember. Create goals and achieve them with inspiring images and quotes.
OneTab
Developers are always full-on browsing with tens of tabs open, but how often do we come back to these tabs, far too often we rely on the power and expectations of our working machines, and it’s not like everyone can afford to have a MacBook — right? With OneTab — you can expect to save up to 95% of your browsers memory by reducing all the unnecessary clutter. OneTab converts all unused tabs into a list that you can come back to when necessary.
LastPass
Quite often, a developer is also an administrator at the project that he’s working on, and quite often these projects have user databases with a lot of user details inside of them, generally a lot of sensitive data — and losing that data can have a lot of consequences, which is why it’s important to have a great and free password manager such as LastPass installed.
In the last few weeks, we took a closer look at some of the most popular password managers — in case you’re wondering of what kind of alternatives are out there.
JSONView
A simple browser extension to make JSON viewing appealing and pleasant.
EditThisCookie
I remember back in the day when it was easy to manipulate cookies, I’d be all over an extension such as this — especially on the Firefox browser, but these days we edit cookies for numerous reasons, mostly to work with our projects and secure them. This is a great and popular Chrome extension that will give you al the necessary features to work with the cookies of your own or other people’s websites.
uBlock
Perhaps not the most obvious developer tool on our list, but ad-blockers are gaining momentum and many developers are agreeing that the current way ads are being displayed on the web is simply mind-boggling, and should be dealt with, either with an ad-blocker or businesses should start coming up with more creative ways to display advertisements.
Vimium
If you’re a Vim user/developer, you’ll absolutely fall in love with this Chrome extension. It gives you all the versatility and flexibility of a Vim editor within your Chrome browsers; imagine being able to use the traditional Vim shortcuts to browse webpages and even develop webpages.
Bookmark Speed Dial
The last extension on our list is all about productivity and being able to access things quickly. If you’re a big bookmarker — like most devs are — this extension will allow you to categorize and list your bookmarks in a very friendly and efficient way.
What Are Your Favorite Chrome Extensions for Devs?
We’ve looked at some really great extensions, no doubt, but what about your own favorites? It’d be a one in a million shot to have listed all the same extensions that you guys use, so please feel free to share your own favorites in the comments.