35 Best Free Chrome Extensions for Web Developers

It will take an awful lot of effort on Google’s part to tear most web developers away from their beloved Firefox, but with the number of web-developer-friendly extensions for Chrome on the rise, developers in increasing numbers are giving Chrome a try and some of them are not looking back.

Chrome’s faster than Firefox, uses less CPU and comes with built-in Developer Tools (accessible by pressing Ctrl+Shift+I). Even if you’re not ready to abandon Firefox yet, make sure you give Chrome a chance with the outstanding extensions below. Chrome’s improving rapidly and early adopters will benefit most.

1. MeasureIt!

Totally straightforward, MeasureIt! lets you draw a ruler so that you can measure the pixel width and height of any element online.

2. Pendule

Pendule provides a veritable smorgasbord of valuable developer tools to help with style sheets, JavaScript, forms, images, accessibility and much more.

3. BuiltWith Technology Profiler

BuiltWith profiles the webpage you’re looking at, exposing all the technologies used therein.

4. Flashblock

With Flashblock, Flash elements on a website are replaced by placeholders, which can be clicked on individually to load the Flash content.

5. Lorem Ipsum Generator

Use this extension to randomly generate lorem ipsum text. It’s as simple as that.

6. iMacros for Chrome

As a web developer, you’ll end up repeating the same actions over and over again. Record these actions as iMacros to save yourself valuable time. Great for filling out web forms.

7. Xmarks Bookmarks and Password Sync

Xmarks is the best tool at your disposal for backing up and syncing bookmarks. Use it to sync across computers and different browsers. 163,569 users can’t be wrong.

8. goo.gl URL Shortener

Google URL Shortener takes long URLs and makes them smaller for easier tweeting and emailing. Use this extension to incorporate the Shortener into your browser.

9. Aviary Screen Capture

Take a screenshot of a webpage and perform basic editing (crop, resize, rotate) in your browser with Aviary.

10. Snippy

While Aviary is the best at capturing entire webpages, Snippy is ideal for grabbing snippets from sites of interest for research.

11. Ibrii

Some people prefer Snippy; others prefer Ibrii, which is another excellent extension for capturing snippets of pictures, text and videos. Try both and see which one’s right for you.

12. PlainClothes

PlainClothes “unstyles” the websites you visit, colour coding specific elements for accessibility and educational purposes.

13. Firebug Lite

An absolute must have extension for web developers. Use it to inspect HTML elements and live edit CSS properties.

14. IE Tab

Use IE Tab to view websites in Internet Explorer while using Chrome.

15. Eye Dropper

Pick any colour from any webpage using this terrific tool.

16. TooManyTabs

Having too many tabs open at once can cause serious confusion and major errors. Clean up your online working environment with TooManyTabs, which makes it possible to clearly see all the tabs you’re using.

17. Session Manager

Session Manager saves your internet session, including all open tabs and windows, for you to come back to. It’s another good one for developers who are a little too “tab-happy”.

18. Chrome Sniffer

The aptly named Chrome Sniffer enables users to inspect the CMS and JavaScript library running on a page. Over 50 different kinds are detectable.

19. Web Developer

You get a whole new toolbar full of web developer goodies when you install this extension.

20. Shareaholic

The first step on the path to recovery from “shareaholism” is admitting you’ve got a problem. The next step is installing Shareaholic for Chrome which makes sharing webpages via Facebook, Twitter and email etc really, really easy.

21. FastestChrome

With over 10 million users, chances are you’ve heard of FastestFox, which speeds up your Firefox browsing experience. FastestChrome is essentially the same thing, but (you guessed it!) for Chrome.

22. Validity

Once installed, you can click on the Validity icon in the address bar to validate your HTML documents without even leaving the page.

23. LastPass

This one’s great for everyone, not just web developers – you can use LastPass to securely store and manage all of the passwords that you use online.

24. Google Tasks

Essentially a to-do list built into your browser, Google Tasks is another extension which is useful for everyone.

25. Chrome SEO

Chrome SEO provides Chrome users with a suite of handy SEO tools. It’s the most popular SEO extension available.

26. Resolution Test

Change the size of your browser to see how websites fare at different resolutions.

27. Speed Tracer

Using Speed Tracer, you can pinpoint and solve speed-related issues with you web apps.

28. Picnik Extension for Chrome

Picnik is one of the best free online image editors out there and now it’s available as a Chrome extension.

29. Chrome Flags

Chrome Flags tells you the physical location of the website you’re viewing by displaying the appropriate national flag.

30. WebEdit

WebEdit’s a superb extension for killing time while experimenting with your developer skills. Use it to edit (non-permanently, of course) any webpage you like.

31. Domain Availability Checker

Checking the availability of domains online is pretty easy, but if you do it regularly you can really benefit from this extension, which runs the necessary checks in secs.

32. SEOQuake Lite

SEOQuake Lite displays the PageRank and Alexa rank of the website you’re viewing in the bottom right of your Chrome browser window.

33. Site Geo IP Locator

Click on the Site Geo icon and the IP address of the current website you’re viewing is revealed. This can then be located on a proper map.

34. Google Mail Checker Plus

Not only can you use Google Mail Checker to see what’s inside your Gmail inbox without navigating away from your current webpage, you can preview messages: deleting, marking as spam or reading as appropriate.

35. SEO Analysis Tool

SEO Analysis Tool picks apart the SEO characteristics of any webpage, providing you with detailed information about meta tag listings, keywords found in anchor tags and URLs found in the page, amongst other things.

About the Auhor

James is a writer and designer who works for an online supplier of toner cartridges where he reviews and analyses hardware such as the MLT-D1082S as well as posting on their advertising and design blog.