Web development is one of the world's most demanding, innovative, and evolving industries. With the constant release of new tools and updates to old ones, it is hard to keep up with all the changes. On the bright side, there are a plethora of tools available to help streamline the process.
There are over 170,000 Google Chrome extensions available on the Chrome web store that'll help improve your productivity, fix bugs, and make things easier for you.
However, with so many chrome extensions available, it can be hard to determine which ones are helpful and which ones you should choose.
Therefore, in this article, we'll talk about the 17 essential Chrome extensions for web developers in 2023 that will help you stay productive and simplify your workflow.
Is Chrome Good for developers?
Many different web browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Brave, are available on the market today, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Browser choice can be critical for web developers, as some browsers are better equipped for development tasks than others. So, is the Chrome browser good for web developers?
Overall, Chrome is a good browser for web developers. It is fast, stable, and has many web developer tools available. Additionally, the Chrome browser has good support for web standards, which is important for developers who want their code to be compatible across different browsers. It has many features that make it easy to use. Some of these features include:
Various web developer tools, including visual inspection and debugging options.
A handy coding feature that can help you create code faster and more efficiently.
Built-in task manager to help you track down memory leaks and other problems quickly.
However, there are also some drawbacks to using Chrome for development.
For example, Chrome can be a bit resource-heavy and doesn't have as many customization options as some other browsers.
Ultimately, the decision to use Chrome for development is up to the individual developer. However, for most developers, Chrome is a good choice.
How do I use Chrome as a web developer?
As a web developer, Chrome is an incredibly useful tool. It's fast, reliable, and has many features that make development easier for web developers.
Here are some tips on how to use Chrome as a web developer:
Use the Developer Tools
Chrome's Developer Tools are incredibly powerful and can help you with everything from debugging to optimizing your code. With the Developer Tools, you can make changes to a web page and see those changes take effect immediately. This can be useful for testing and debugging purposes.
Take advantage of extensions
Many chrome extensions for web developers are available that can make web development easier. Some browser extensions are free, while others cost money. Chrome extensions for developers give you more functionality than what's built into Chrome.
Use incognito mode
Incognito mode is a private browsing mode that doesn’t save your history after the session. This is useful when testing things out on websites where you want to keep your actions private from others who might be using the same computer or device. You can also use incognito mode when trying out new extensions or apps so they don't affect your usual browsing experience too much if something goes wrong with them.
By following these tips, you can make the most out of Chrome as a web developer.
Now, let’s look at the most useful Chrome extensions available for web developers in 2023.
What are the best Chrome extensions for developers?
There's no shortage of Chrome extensions for developers. The Chrome Web Store is filled with chrome extensions such as code editors, productivity tools, and debugging tools.
So, let’s get started.
1. Ruttl
Ruttl is one of the best Chrome extensions for developers because it allows developers to take feedback for web pages with easy annotation. This makes it easy to do UXauditing, identify UI issues, and fix them quickly.
Ruttl also provides an edit mode that makes it easy for clients to replace images, edit text, and make all the necessary changes to speed up the process. The newly launched bug-tracking feature makes the product creation process even easier.
The Ruttl Chrome extension can help developers:
Review websites and get precise feedback.
Live editing enabled for websites.
Easily track and monitor bugs within the web project.
Change font, move elements and experiment with different colours.
Annotate and real-time comments to markup PDFs and images and so much more.
ruttl has several integrations with other popular tools, such as Slack, GitHub, and Jira, to further streamline the web development process.
2. Github
Github is a code hosting site that allows developers to share, collaborate, and build great software. It gives you quick access to your repositories, issues, and pull requests. You can also browse the code of other projects and quickly install them into your project.
Github extensions for Chrome are a must-have for any developer. Here's a list of a few Chrome extensions that are a must-have for any developer:
Octolinker
The OctoLinker browser web developer extension links code that belongs together, making it much easier to follow includes and imports within your codebase when using GitHub.
CodeFolding
Code folding extension allows users to fold their code blocks on GitHub, making the codebase more readable
CodeWing
CodeWing is a state-of-the-art Chrome extension that takes GitHub's features to the next level, such as with variable definitions and hovering documentation.
Sourcegraph
Sourcegraph is a code-browsing extension that makes it easy to search your repositories and find what you're looking for.
3. Window Resizer
As a web developer, you've got to be able to test your sites and apps on various screen resolutions and sizes. You can do this manually, but it takes time and effort. A better option is to use a free Chrome extension like Window Resizer that lets you resize your browser window with the click of a button.
The WindowResizer lets you resize your browser window to different screen sizes (width, height, and position). It also has a built-in preset icon for standard devices and different browser resolutions, including mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. It also lets you enter custom dimensions if none of the presets fit your needs.
The resolutions list is highly customizable, allowing you to add/delete/re-order items as you see fit. You can also set the window's width/height and its position on the screen.
4. WhatFont
WhatFont is a Google Chrome extension that helps you identify fonts used on web pages. This is useful if you're designing a website, or if you're just curious about what font your favorite website uses.
If you're a web developer always on the lookout for attractive pages to use as inspiration for your own work, WhatFont is a great, lightweight tool to help you save these examples for future reference. It hasn't been updated in a while, but it still works perfectly - meaning it won't slow down your computer or use up many resources.
WhatFont allows you to hover over text and see the exact font name and size of the text on the page. You can also search for specific fonts and find out which ones match your query. This makes it easy to find the perfect font for your project without having to manually inspect every single font on your computer or go through a long list of options.
5. ColorPick Eyedropper
The ColorPickEyedropper extension lets you pick colors directly from any part of your screen.
It's a simple but effective chrome extension for web developers that you can use for various purposes, including pickingcolorsforwebsites, software development, and graphic design.
The eyedropper is small and discreet, so it won't get in the way when you're working on your PC. It's also easy to use: click on the icon and drag it around the page until you find the color you want to sample.
ColorPick Eyedropper supports four color models, which means it can display:
HSB (hue-saturation-brightness)
RGB (Red-green-blue)
Lab (L: Lightness. a: Red/Green Value. b: Blue/Yellow Value)
CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black))
This makes it ideal for graphic designers who need to work with high-resolution images or graphics files.
6. Lorem Ipsum Generator
If you work with words, there's nothing worse than having to create placeholder text for mockups and designs. The LoremIpsumGenerator makes this process much easier by providing random paragraphs of lorem ipsum nonsense text, perfect for filling empty spaces and testing layouts and typography.
The lorem ipsum generator chrome extension provides 1-5 paragraphs with 1-20 sentences per paragraph and can also include an optional paragraph tag or other line breaks. Plus, you can copy the text to your clipboard in the regular font size.
7. Clear Cache
Clearing your cache is one of the first things you should do when troubleshooting a problem or refreshing to reflect changes on a website.
The ClearCache Chrome extension is a must-have for any developer. With a single click of a button, you can quickly clear your cache and browsing data without any confirmation dialogs or pop-ups. This Chrome extension is fast, reliable, and easy to use, making it an excellent choice for anyone who needs to clear their cache frequently.
You can specify how much data you want to clear on the options page, including App Cache, Cache, Cookies, Downloads, File Systems, Form Data, History, Indexed DB, Local Storage, Plugin Data, Passwords, and WebSQL.
Also, you have the option to remove cookies for:
All sites
Only for certain domains
Everything except for certain domains
Based on time period
8. Check My Links
CheckMyLinks is a handy Chrome extension for developers and web admins. It helps you find broken links on a particular web page and checks the validity of all your links. If there are broken links, it'll highlight them in red.
This Chrome developer extension could also be helpful for SEO and other specialties, not just for developers.
Once you've installed the extension into Chrome, you'll see a small checkmark icon in your toolbar. When you're on the page you want to assess, click the icon, and a pop-up window will appear with all of the links analyzed. Depending on the size of the page, this might take a few seconds, but it works flawlessly.
9. JavaScript and CSS Code Beautifier
The JavaScriptandCSSCodeBeautifier is a great way to tidy up your code. This Chrome extension will format your code so that it is easier to read and understand. It also makes your code more consistent with the standard coding conventions.
The Chrome extension inserts newlines, removes unnecessary spaces, indents properly, and much more. The beautifier even supports tabs, which is great for developers who prefer using tabs over spaces when writing code.
This Chrome extension can work as a CSS viewer (LESS/SCSS/SASS) / JavaScript(JSX/TypeScript/JSON files) formatter. It can unpack or deobfuscate JavaScript, and it has 60+ themes for syntax highlighting.
10. Session Buddy
SessionBuddy is a browser session manager with "save it for later" functionality.
It has an easy-to-use interface that helps you work with multiple tabs, windows, and profiles in different browsers. You can also use Session Buddy for multiple devices, such as desktop, mobile, tablet, or another computer.
This Chrome extension has the ability to store your browsing history and all open tabs in Chrome in a safe place. This tool allows you to restore your saved session anytime with just one click. It also saves all your open tabs so that you can access them later, even if you have closed them accidentally or intentionally.
11. Wappalyzer
Wappalyzer is one of web developers' most popular Google Chrome developer extensions. It scans websites and tells you what technology they're built on. This can be useful when you're looking for inspiration or trying to find bugs in other people's code.
Wappalyzer is an effective tool that detects much more than a website's CMS or framework. It can also uncover over a thousand different technologies in several categories, such as programming languages, analytics tools, marketing tools, payment processors, server software, CRM, eCommerce platforms, etc. This makes it an invaluable resource for web developers and website owners who want to know their site's technology.
12. HTML Validator
The HTMLValidation extension is a browser extension that spots errors in your HTML code. The Chrome extension adds an icon to the browser status bar that lets you know how many errors are on the page, and you can see the details in the Developer Tools.
There are hundreds of HTML tools out there - you might already have a few installed on your computer. However, the HTML Validator is genuinely useful for its quick validation capabilities.
13. React Developer Tools
ReactDeveloperTools is a Chrome DevTools extension that allows you to inspect the React component hierarchy in the Chrome browser. You'll get two new tabs in your Chrome DevTools: "Components" and "Profiler." This is a great way to debug React applications.
By selecting the Components tab, you can see both the root React components and the child components that were ultimately rendered on the page. You may view and modify a component's current props and state in the panel on the right by choosing it in the tree and clicking the appropriate button. You can inspect the chosen component, the component that generated it, the component that generated that, and so on, in the breadcrumbs.
14. Lighthouse
Lighthouse is an open-source tool from Google that helps you test your website's performance, accessibility, and best practices.
Lighthouse automatically audits the web pages that you visit and gives you actionable feedback so you can improve your site. For example, it can point out problems with page load time and resource usage, accessibility issues, and more.
Lighthouse can also perform audits on specific URLs or sections of the page rather than entire pages. This allows you to see how a page is doing at any stage of development so that you can make improvements before deploying it to production.
15. ColorZilla
ColorZilla is one of the powerful Google Chrome extensions that lets you inspect and understand the colors of any DOM element on a web page. It has many features, like a magnifying glass, an eyedropper tool, a color picker, a CSS gradient analyzer, a gradient generator, and more.
This webpage color analyzer chrome extension is one of the most versatile web developer extensions, as it supports most elements and offers more features than most other color pickers.
ColoZilla is an essential tool for anyone who comes across a website with a color palette that they like and wants to know what colors were used so that they can use them too. It makes identifying combinations or individual colors quick and easy.
16. Page Ruler
The PageRuler Chrome extension is a must-have for web developers.
It adds a ruler to the browser that shows you the width, height, and position (in pixels) of any element on the web page. It's incredibly useful for getting a real sense of an element's size, especially if you need to code it up in CSS.
The Page Ruler extension even lets you measure distances between elements on the page by dragging your mouse between them. This can be great for positioning elements in relation to each other or even just checking if they're positioned correctly on the page.
17. Snap Note
SnapNote is a Chrome extension that allows you to quickly and easily take notes while browsing the web. You can use it to take notes on a website or to jot down a thought or idea quickly. Snapnote is quick and easy to use and is a great way to keep your notes organized.
The Chrome extension has been designed specifically for web developers, designers, writers, and other professionals who need to capture information. When you click on the extension, a quick window opens to make it easy for you to take notes while you work.
Final Thoughts
Google has made a lot of chrome extensions for developer-related tasks. There are multiple different options for storing information and keeping it accessible; managing projects and collaborating with others; optimizing performance; following web standards—the list goes on and on.
If you’re curious about understanding topics like web development, web design, and UIUX. Check out ruttl’s blog.
