Google Chrome, like Firefox, has the ability to increase its functionality and capabilities through the use of extensions. If you’re a web developer, Google Chrome comes with a nice set of developer tools built in that will make your life easier. But there are also a number of extensions that will give you even more tools at your disposal. The great thing about extensions is that they allow you to perform tasks that would normally require you to switch over to another application. Being able to perform certain tasks without leaving your browser can be a big time saver.
Here are 13 Google Chrome extensions that you should find very useful.
Color Picker
Color Oicker lets you quickly get the Hex and RGB values of any color! Also adjust Hue, Saturation, and Balance.
Firebug Lite
Firebug Lite is a tool for web developers, that allows you to edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
Domain Availability Checker
This extension checks the availability of a domain name. What’s the point of going to another page when you can check it from your toolbar.
Aviary Screen Capture
Aviary Screen Capture allows you to ake a screenshot of any webpage and edit it directly in your browser with Aviary.com applications. Plus it has convenient access to the Aviary website and tools.
Lorem Ipsum Generator
Lorem Ipsum Generator gives you an easy and convenient way to generate dummy text for your design mock-ups.
IE Tab
Use Internet Explorer to display web pages in a Chrome tab. Some sites can only be displayed using IE, and with this extension you can now see those sites without leaving Chrome. Great for web developers who want to test the IE rendering engine, users who use sites with ActiveX controls, and users who want to use the explorer view for local files (i.e. file:// URLs).
MeasureIt!
MeasureIt! gives you the ability to draw out a ruler that will help you get the pixel width and height of any elements on a webpage.
PlainClothes
This extension styles — or rather “unstyles” — the web. Just imagine: text is black, backgrounds are white, unread links are blue, visited links are purple, all links are underlined. Or any other colors you like. And all text is rendered in your default fonts (as defined in “Options” > “Under the Hood” > “Change font and language settings”). Everywhere. Automatically.
Eye Dropper
Eye Dropper and Color Picker extension which allows you to pick color from any webpage or from advanced color picker.
Speed Tracer
Speed Tracer is a tool to help you identify and fix performance problems in your web applications. It visualizes metrics that are taken from low level instrumentation points inside of the browser and analyzes them as your application runs. Speed Tracer is available as a Chrome extension and works on all platforms where extensions are currently supported (Windows and Linux).
Pendule
Pendule extends the already built-in developer tools of Chrome.
Resolution Test
Resolution Test changes the size of the browser window for developers to preview their websites in different screen resolutions. It includes a list of commonly used resolutions as well as a custom option for you to input your own.
Snippy
Snippy allows you to grab snippets of web pages and save them for future use. It captures rich contents and preserves formatting, so you can capture paragraphs, images, links and more.