A couple of months ago, we reviewed the new Firefox browser designed for developers. Since then most of our developers kept Google Chrome as their primary browser. Working with Chrome offers access to an immense repository of Chrome extensions and tools which make our daily tasks less of a chore. With the built-in developer tools, there seems to be no further need for more tools. However, I’d like to present you with 17 of the best Google Chrome extensions for developers.
17 of the best Google Chrome Extensions for developers
1. Usersnap
The Usersnap Chrome extension lets you capture and annotate any web page directly in your browser. It’s super-easy to provide visual feedback on prototypes or report bugs with this Google extension.
And all created screenshots and screen recordings are directly stored in your project dashboard, making bug tracking and feedback a lot of fun!
Click the image to see Usersnap’s Chrome extension in action (YouTube video) ⤵️
Usersnap is an award-winning bug tracking and feedback tool, featured by Inc., Forbes, Techcrunch, and The Huffington Post. It is loved by companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft who use Usersnap on a daily basis to work together on web projects.
Try Usersnap for free for 15 days here.
Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains.
Bill Gates – Founder, Microsoft
2. Web Developer
The web developer extension for Chrome adds a little toolbar with different tools available. The original concept of this Chrome extension for developers came from the PNH Developer Toolbar.
The Google extension web developers have a lot of handy tools a developer can use in their day-to-day work – for designers as well as programmers. It allows you to do a lot more than the standard Chrome Inspector, like being able to easily add outlines to elements just by clicking, displaying rulers, finding all broken images on a page, and lots more.
Link: Web developer extension.
3. Hiver
This is a tool that helps teams manage group inboxes like engineering@ and bugs@, right from Gmail. With Hiver, critical emails – regarding support escalations and other technical bug problems – arriving in these inboxes can be auto-assigned to individual developers and kept track of in real-time, till the point of resolution.
Link: Hiver
4. f19N Obtrusive Live Test
This Chrome extension for developers is a sandboxed, extendable Webpage Testing Framework. It allows devs to test all pages on predefined best practices such as SEO or web performance. It is very simple to create the tests yourself.
You get direct visual feedback and see what is happening in the browser during page loads and render lifecycles.
Link: F19N Obtrusive Live Test
5. ClickUp
ClickUp is an all-in-one productivity solution for software teams to plan, collaborate, and manage projects in one centralized work hub. Known for its rich set of customizable features, ClickUp packs six of its most dynamic project management tools into its Chrome Extension to help developers create detailed tasks, track time, annotate screenshots, or take notes from any open tab. Since it’s directly connected to your workflows, every action you take using the Chrome Extension is automatically updated in your ClickUp Workspace across devices, in real-time. ClickUp’s Chrome Extension will boost productivity by streamlining your task creation and feedback processes while eliminating the need to open, close, or click between windows as you work.
Link: ClickUp Chrome Extension
6. Window Resizer for Developer
The Window Resizer extension lets you resize your browser window on the fly. Clicking on the icon in the menu bar produces a drop-down menu of window sizes that you can customize. What’s neat about the Window Resizer is that it offers an option to launch it as a pop-up, enabling you to switch through different screen resolutions and see if your media breakpoints are working as expected. On top of that, you can also rotate your screen and customize the presets.
Resize the browser window to emulate various screen resolutions.
Link: Window Resizer
7. ColorPick Eyedropper
ColorPick Eyedropper is a simple color picker tool that allows you to select color values from any web page.
Link: ColorPick Eyedropper
8. CSSViewer
CSSViewer is a simple CSS property viewer. It provides a floating panel that reports on the identity of the section that the mouse is over, along with its font, text, color, background, box, positioning, and effects attributes. CSSViewer provided the basic CSS information you need quickly. Make sure to install this Chrome extension.
Link: CSS Viewer
9. Lorem Ipsum generator
The lorem ipsum generator does what its name states. It provides an easy and quick way to create default text. Definitely, this is a quick win if you need some default text as a placeholder.
Link: Lorem Ipsum Generator
10. actiTIME
actiTIME Timer helps developers to keep track of work hours directly from the web browser and web apps such as Jira. It is used by companies and freelancers for analyzing performance and controlling the project’s progress and profitability.
Link: actiTIME
11. Ghostery
Ghostery is a great Google extension that detects trackers, pixels, and any other embedded snippets on a website. You immediately see which plugins and trackers are installed on the web page you’ve visited. Further on, Ghostery lets you protect your privacy. There’s no registration or sign-up required to use this Chrome extension.
See who’s tracking your web browsing with Ghostery.
Link: Ghostery
12. Wappalyzer
Similar to Ghostery, the Wappalyzer Chrome extension lets you identify software that is installed on any particular website. It uncovers technologies and. content management system, eCommerce platforms, web servers, JavaScript frameworks, and installed analytics tools.
Identify web technologies with Wappalyzer
Link: Wappalyzer
13. IE Tab
In need to do some manual IE testing and don’t want to install all kinds of different Internet Explorer versions? Check out the IE Tab extension for Chrome which emulates IE by using the IE rendering engine directly in Chrome. You can test your website for IE6, IE7, IE8, or IE9 directly in your chrome browser.
Unfortunately, the IE Tab Chrome extension is only available for Windows at the moment.
Link: IE Tab
14. Site Spider
If you need to find broken links on your site and want to restrict spidering to a specific directory you need Site Spider.
Link: Site Spider
15. Session Manager
When you’re working on the web, browser tabs management is a great skill. Session Manager is your Chrome extension to go. It saves your browsing state and lets you re-open the session later. It is particularly useful if you find yourself opening the same web pages over and over.
Link: Session Manager
16. Clear Cache
This extremely useful Chrome extension allows you to clear your cache from the toolbar. It works “behind-the-scenes” meaning there are no popups or confirmation dialogs to distract you. It’s customizable in terms of how much data you want to clear, including app cache, downloads, file systems, form data, history, local storage, passwords, and much more.
Link: Clear Cache
17. JSONView
As a developer working with RESTful APIs, reading raw JSON data on a browser can be quite awkward. It’s much easier to read JSON in tree-view, rather than in its raw state. The Chrome extension JSONView helps you view JSON documents in the browser.
Link: JSON Viewer
Coding Chrome Extensions For Developers – How to Do It!
Chrome extensions or add-ons for Chrome are small software applications that introduce new features and make your browsing experience more convenient. They allow users to tailor browser functionality and aesthetics according to their personal preferences. Coding extensions is usually done using a multitude of programming languages including JS, HTML, and CSS.
Coding Extensions – Step by Step Guide
When coding chrome extensions for developers, first of all you need to create a folder and add the following files.
Step 1 – manifest.json
This is the file that will provide Chrome with basic information related to your extension such as required permission and its name. The majority of the variables in the manifest file are quite self-explanatory and you can change any of them. The matches variable is responsible for running the select content.js when a particular webpage is launched.
- “<all_urls>”: will match any URL that begins with an approved scheme such as http:, https:, file:, ftp:, or chrome-extension:.
- “http://*/*”: will match any URL that uses the http: scheme.
- “https://*/*”: will match any URL that uses the https: scheme.
- “*://*/*”: will match any URL that uses the https: or http: scheme.
Step 2 – content.js
This is a JavaScript file that’s executed in the context of web pages. It means that this file enables content script to interact with websites and web pages that the user opens in their Chrome browser.
Step 3 – Image Icon
Add your icon file in png format to the folder. You can either download or create an icon for your extension.
Step 4 – background.js
While you have installed the extension, there are no instructions present. Create a file named background.js and add a background script. Place this file in the extension folder. Ensure that you’ve registered your background script in the manifest which tells your extension what files to reference and how certain files will act.
Step 5 – Creating and Naming Extension
Once you are done, add all the files to a folder and name it after your extension.
Intuitive design is how we give the user new superpowers.
Jared Spool – Founder, User Interface Engineering
This article on chrome extensions for developers was brought to you by Usersnap – a visual customer feedback software used by software companies like Facebook, Airbus, and Microsoft.
Capture feedback easily. Get more insights and confidence.
Getting feedback has never been easier and we hope you’ve realized that after reading this article. Let us know what you think, your feedback is important.
And if you’re ready to try out a customer feedback software, Usersnap offers a free trial. Sign up today or book a demo with our feedback specialists.
