16 Ultimate Chrome Extensions for Web Designers and Developers

There was a time when Firefox was the best choice for the web designers and developers to test and build their site. Firefox is built on the extension framework, so the expandability of extensions was pretty wide. Now Chrome is also supporting extensions and that made many developers to move to Chrome for their development, test and design needs.

This topic is the rundown of the Ultimate list of Chrome extensions that a Developer or Designer would love to have.

1. Firebug Lite

Firebug Lite allows you to inspect the HTML, CSS and JavaScript code live in any page, You’re also able to edit the code and test the new changes immediately. It was originally a Firefox extension, and the Chrome version came later.

2. Web Developer

Web Developer Toolbar by Chris Pederick was originally a very  popular Firefox extension, but it’s also available for Chrome now. It does a whole lot of things with CSS, HTML, forms, and images. You just click a button in the top-right corner of the browser to view all the options.

3. Chrome Sniffer

Have you ever wondered what technologies, frameworks, and open source apps a website is using? Experienced web developers can find this out by studying the site’s source code, but if you want a more convenient and quick way of doing this, then check out Chrome Sniffer. Chrome Sniffer lists all known JavaScript framework/libraries (jQuery, MooTools, etc.) and CMS (Drupal, WordPress, etc.) that a website uses.

4. Eye Dropper

EyeDropper enables you to identify any color on a website you’re viewing. It comes with a color picker tool that will tell you the pixel’s HTML color code and RGB levels. Once you’ve picked a color you’ll also see where it belongs on the included color wheel.

5. Pendule

Pendule is a pop-up control panel loaded with tasks helpful to designers. Almost similar like the Web Developer Toolbar, it can serve as a all in one extension for web designers. A few of its notable features: a pixel ruler, an eye dropper, a color picker, and several script validators. You can also use it to reload or disable CSS, view JavaScript and hide images.

6. Pixlr Grabber

You can use this extension to select any area of the visible screen — either a custom space or the entire web page — to export to an image file.You can also share the screenshot to Pixlr imm.i or modify it in Pixlr’s editor. It’s a good tool for analyzing your own work or admiring the work of others.

7. Speed Tracer

Speed Tracer records how much time your web app spends on various tasks and tries to figure out where the bottlenecks in performance are. You can use that information to speed up the user experience. The extension can tell you how much time the browser is spending interpreting JavaScript, for example.

8. Lorem Ipsum Generator

This extension is to create random, dummy text on the fly so you can fill out your designs and get a sense for the aesthetics when no copy has been written for the site yet. It just takes a couple clicks, and it’s not complicated at all. It’s a web designers favorite filler, it’s simple, minimalist and isn’t memory hungry.

9. 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.

10. Aviary Screen Capture

This quick screen capture add-on is a must-have for bloggers and designers alike! It will perform a screen capture of the visible portion of any webpage and then open the capture INSTANTLY in a basic image editor where you can do markup (draw arrows and rectangles), edit (crop, rotate and resize) and get the exact pixel colors of the image. A perfect companion tool for designers and bloggers.

11. Ultimate Chrome Flag

This extension shows a country or region flag indicating the location of the website you’re visiting. And the following information will be shown in the popup:

• Country or region name
• Domain name and IP address
• Geo information
• Google PageRank
• Alexa Rank
• WOT (Web of Trust) information
• Copy domain name and IP address to clipboard

On the popup, click domain name, Geo, Alexa Rank or WOT will go to corresponding site to view detailed information of current site.

12. Chrome SEO

The Google Chrome SEO extension provides easy access to Search Engine Optimization Tools that can help you with Competitive Analysis, Keyword Research, Backlink Checks and other daily SEO tasks.

13. Resolution Test

Resolution Test is an extension for testing web pages in different screen resolutions, with an option to define your own custom resolutions. This is very handy in making sure that your web design looks great under different monitor sizes.

14. Quick Markup: Screen capture & Brainstorm

Capture webpage freely or open your local image, mark up with shape, text, icon and mind mapping information, one-click upload to share. Support PNG and shortcuts. Useful in organizing ideas and works, planning and tracking projects, solving the problem of image-based information exchange.

15. jQuery Shell

jQuery Shell allows you to run JavaScript and jQuery commands in the context of the current web page. It’s a great extension for learning and experimenting with jQuery.

16. SEO Site Tools

A well-formed web page with great markup ultimately leads to awesome search engine results. However, if you would like to evaluate your website in terms of known search engine optimization factures, try out the SEO Site Tools, a Chrome extension that gives you a plethora of useful tools and features for evaluating SEO. It can pull tons of on-page and off-page metrics, social media information, and more.

Do you know about an extension that helped you out in your design or development on Google Chrome? Please have no hesitation to share with us. Just let me know in the comments section.