This list of the best Chrome extensions for developers is meticulously curated to enhance your productivity and, most importantly, save you a great deal of time. So if you are a back-end, front-end, or one-man-army web developer, fasten your seatbelts, and let’s go!
"Every great developer you know got there by solving problems they were unqualified to solve until they actually did it."
1. Capture
Chrome rating: 5/5
Capture is the first Chrome extension we advise you to add to your browser for several reasons. With Capture, recording interactions on web pages becomes much easier. It automatically captures all your actions within each test step, generating a timestamped video of your test execution. This video and the transcript of actions allow you to reproduce defects quickly and gain a clear understanding of the reported issues.
It also offers versatile capturing options, including desktop capture, window recording, or in-app screencasting. Capture works even better when everyone on the team uses it. A timestamped video of discovered defects from the testers helps you understand the issue promptly, accelerating the troubleshooting process.
Capture automatically saves crucial information about the operating system, browser version, and window resolution used during the test as well. You can also take full or partial screenshots directly within the browser and annotate them on the spot.
This must-have Chrome extension for web developers also empowers teams with comprehensive test documentation by providing annotated screenshots, timestamped videos, and a log of all tester inputs. As a company, you will save yourself quite a bit of stress that independent and government QA audits often carry.
Additionally, Capture integrates with one of the most popular bug-reporting tools — aqua cloud. With this integration, you can create a test case from scratch, start a test run, and report the captured data directly to the tool.
2. CSSviewer
Chrome rating: 4.4/5
CSSViewer is the second Chrome extension for developers on our list, and it allows you to inspect and extract CSS properties from any element on a web page. With CSSViewer, you can easily identify and analyse the CSS styles applied to specific elements by hovering over them. It displays the computed CSS properties, including colour, font, padding, margin, and more, providing you with a quick overview of the styling rules applied to a selected element.
CSSViewer streamlines inspecting and understanding CSS styles, making it convenient for you to troubleshoot styling issues, debug layout problems, and ensure consistency in web designs.
3. Octotree
Chrome rating: 4.8/5
Octotree is another top Chrome extension for developers that provides a tree-style code navigation sidebar for GitHub repositories. It helps developers simplify code exploration on GitHub by organising the repository’s files and folders in a collapsible tree structure.
Octotree enhances your code browsing experience on GitHub repositories by providing easy navigation through codebases, seamless switching between files and directories, and quick access to code snippets by eliminating repetitive page navigation. It significantly improves productivity, particularly for larger projects with extensive directory structures, enabling efficient exploration of complex codebases.
4. React Developer Tools
Chrome rating: 4.1/5
The next useful Chrome extension for developers is React Developer Tools, which enhances Chrome Developer Tools by providing additional features specifically tailored for React applications.
This extension will help you with the following:
- Inspect the React component hierarchy
- Monitor component props and state
- Debug React applications more effectively
The extension allows you to analyse each React component’s structure and behaviour, examine the props and state values, and observe the changes through the component tree. React Developer Tools also provides invaluable insights for debugging, optimising performance, and understanding the React architecture of your applications.
5. Lighthouse
Chrome rating: 4.4/5
Developed by Google, Lighthouse is a powerful extension that helps you audit web pages for:
- Performance
- Accessibility
- Best practices
- SEO
Lighthouse allows you to run an automated analysis of a web page and receive a detailed report with suggestions for improvement. It monitors different aspects of a web page, like performance metrics, accessibility standards, and adherence to best practices.
This extension provides actionable insights and recommendations to optimise your website’s performance, enhance accessibility, and improve its overall quality and visibility. As your website grows, keeping track of the complicated metrics over time becomes much harder, so Lighthouse might be your best choice. Whether you run ads or count on organic traffic, getting recommendations for better Google ranking straight from Google is invaluable.
6. JSON Viewer
Chrome rating: 4.6/5
JSON Viewer is a helpful extension that allows you to view and format JSON documents more comfortably. With this extension, you can present JSON responses from APIs or raw JSON data files in a structured and organised format, making it easier to understand and analyse.
JSON Viewer also provides the following:
- Syntax highlighting
- Collapsible sections
- Indentation
These features allow you to easily navigate and explore complex JSON structures, enhancing readability and facilitating debugging and data analysis tasks.
7. Postman
Chrome rating: 4.7/5
One of the most popular and best Google Chrome extensions for developers is Postman, a popular API development and testing tool that simplifies sending HTTP requests and analysing responses. With this extension, you can easily create and send requests like GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE to test APIs.
It provides a user-friendly interface for adding:
- Request headers
- Query parameters
- Request bodies
- Authentication credentials
With Postman, you can save and organise your API requests in collections, making management smoother. Its comprehensive testing capabilities help you validate API responses, debug issues, and streamline your web application development and testing.
Besides these Chrome extensions, you will also need a roadmap for your testing and development projects. aqua’s testing strategy template empowers you to choose a modern approach that aligns with industry best practices, ensuring efficient and effective testing processes. It provides you with expert recommendations on applying the best testing tools available in the market, helping you make informed decisions for your needs.
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8. VS Code
Chrome rating: 4.7/5
This extension brings you the power of Visual Studio Code, a popular and feature-rich code editor. It provides a familiar and robust development environment within your browser. It provides features like:
- Syntax highlighting
- Code completion from auto-suggestions
- Debugging capabilities
- Access to many extensions
The VS Code extension enables you to write, debug, and test code efficiently. It also supports multiple programming languages and offers various customisation options, making it a valuable tool for web developers working directly in the browser.
9. Web Developer
Chrome rating: 4.5/5
The Web Developer is a comprehensive toolkit for web developers, offering various essential tools to enhance your web development workflow. It has several unique features, including:
- The ruler that allows you to measure elements on a web page
- Colour picker that enables you to select colours and get their hexadecimal or RGB values
- CSS viewer to provide a detailed inspection of CSS properties applied to web page elements
This extension also offers functionalities like temporarily disabling JavaScript, CSS, or images to test website performance, analysing and editing cookies, and manipulating forms for testing purposes. With the Web Developer extension, you can streamline your web development tasks and quickly access essential tools directly within the Chrome browser.
10. Redux DevTools
Chrome rating: 4.7/5
Redux DevTools is a powerful extension for developers, providing advanced debugging and inspection capabilities. It allows you to:
- Monitor and debug Redux state changes in your application, making the tracking process easier
- Examine the Redux store’s current state
- Analyse how the state evolves over time
The extension offers unique features like time-travel debugging. It lets you replay past actions and observe their effect on the application’s state. With Redux DevTools, you can gain valuable insights into your Redux-powered application, identify potential issues, and optimise the state management process.
11. Wappalyzer
Chrome rating: 4.6/5
Wappalyzer is a Chrome extension that helps you identify the technologies used on websites. It gives you insights into the underlying technology stack behind a website, like content management systems, programming languages, frameworks, and analytics tools.
With Wappalyzer, you can get a detailed breakdown of the technologies used, allowing you to understand any website’s technological landscape. This information can be valuable for competitive analysis, research, and web development ecosystem understanding.
12. EditThisCookie
Chrome rating: 4.4/5
Probably the most popular Chrome extension on our list is EditThisCookie, with more than 11,000 reviews on the webstore. It allows you to edit, delete, and view the cookies in your browser. The extension also provides a user-friendly interface, inspecting each cookie’s values, expiration dates, and other properties.
You can easily add new cookies, modify existing ones, or remove no longer-needed cookies. As obvious from its name, EditThisCookie is particularly valuable in troubleshooting cookies-related issues. It lets you manipulate cookie data and observe the effects in real-time. EditThisCookie simplifies the cookie management process and provides greater control over the cookies stored by websites you visit.
13. Colorzilla
Chrome rating: 4.4/5
ColorZilla is the next popular extension on our list that provides an eyedropper tool and a colour picker for selecting colours from web pages. With ColorZilla, you can easily extract colour values from elements on a web page, including text, backgrounds, buttons, and images.
The eyedropper tool allows you to click on elements to capture their colour, while the colour picker provides a comprehensive interface for choosing colours manually. The extension also offers a palette generator, gradient generator, and other colour-related utilities to simplify the colour selection and manipulation tasks. Whether you’re a designer, developer, or digital artist, ColorZilla is a valuable web design and development tool.
14. User-Agent Switcher
Chrome rating: 3.9/5
The last extension on our list of the best Chrome extensions for developers is User-Agent Switcher, which allows you to switch the user-agent string sent by your browser. It is useful for testing and emulating different devices and browsers, enabling you to change your browser’s user agent to simulate the behaviour of various platforms like different browsers, operating systems, or mobile devices.
Modifying the user-agent string allows you to test how a website or web application behaves under different conditions and ensure optimal compatibility across multiple platforms. Whether you need to test responsive design, browser-specific functionality, or mobile responsiveness, the User-Agent Switcher extension provides a convenient and efficient solution.
Conclusion
14 Chrome extensions from our list will greatly enhance your productivity and efficiency. From code editing and debugging to testing and project management, each extension serves a specific purpose and offers unique benefits. Incorporating these extensions into your workflow allows you to streamline tasks, improve code quality, and optimise your overall development process.
But only these extensions might not be enough to streamline your testing process. You will also need a robust solution for test management that would improve the work efficiency and relationships between developers and testers. That is where aqua cloud comes to your rescue. With its user-friendly interface and powerful features, this web testing software simplifies test planning, execution, and collaboration. aqua empowers you to achieve effective testing, from intelligent automation to comprehensive reporting. You can take your testing to the next level with just a few clicks and experience the benefits of a fast, efficient, and AI-powered test management tool.
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