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Adrian Matei
Adrian Matei

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My list of almost indispensable Chrome Extensions

I came to find out that chrome extensions are great. Be it for productivity boosting, bookmarking, as developer tools or writing, I use them extensively. Below is a list of my almost indispensable extensions sorted by the frequency I use them.

I use Brave by the way, but all the mentioned extensions work just fine.

Codever

Codever

Bookmarking work-related links and dev resources and code snippets has become second nature to me and it helps me save lots of time and nerves.

Githup repo


Octotree

Octotree

GitHub on steroids
Browser extension that really brings your GitHub experience to the next level.

Features

  • Easy-to-navigate code tree, just like in IDEs
  • Fast file browsing with pjax
  • Display pull request changes
  • Support private repositories

Pro features (require account and/or subscription on https://www.octotree.io/)

Githup repo


CodeCopy

CodeCopy

Adds copy to clipboard buttons on code snippets.

Works with:

And more.


OctoLinker

OctoLinker

OctoLinker is a browser extension for GitHub, that turns language-specific statements like include require or import into links.


Grammarly

Grammarly

From grammar and spelling to style and tone, Grammarly helps you eliminate writing errors and find the perfect words to express yourself.
You’ll get suggestions from Grammarly as you write on Gmail, Twitter, LinkedIn, and nearly everywhere else you find yourself writing.


Video Speed Controller

Video Speed Controller

If you are watching youtube videos, or take udemy courses as I do this extension is pretty handy - it speeds up, slows down, advances and rewinds any HTML5 video with quick shortcuts.

Githup repo


Window Resizer

Window Resizer

This extension re-sizes the browser's window in order to emulate various resolutions. It is particularly useful for web designers and developers by helping them test their layouts on different browser resolutions.

JSONView

JSONView

Validate and view JSON documents


Lighthouse

Lighthouse

Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool for improving the performance, quality, and correctness of your web apps.

You can also run Lighthouse via the the DevTools Audits Panel

Website


ColorZilla

ColorZilla

Advanced Eyedropper, Color Picker, Gradient Generator and other colorful goodies

Website


CSSViewer

CSSViewer

A simple CSS property viewer.
CSSViewer is a simple CSS properties viewer originally made by Nicolas Huon as a FireFox add-on (2006-2008).

How to use :
To enable CSSViewer, simply click the toolbar icon and then hover any element on you want to inspect in current page.

Website - Github Repo

Form filler

Form filler

This extension allows you to fill all form inputs (textboxes, textareas, radio buttons, dropdowns, etc.) with dummy data. It is a must for developers who work with forms as it avoids the need for manually entering values in fields.

Github repo


Clear Cache

Clear Cache

Clear your cache and browsing data with a single click of a button.

Quickly clear your cache with this extension without any confirmation dialogs, pop-ups or other annoyances.


You can find most of these chrome extensions on bookmarked onhttps://www.bookmarks.dev/search?q=[google-chrome-extension] and in the generated public repository on Github - CodepediaOrg/bookmarks

If you have one I really should include my in list please leave a comment below.

Top comments (25)

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saqibameen profile image
Saqib Ameen • Edited

Hey,

Thank you so much for sharing your list of Chrome extensions. I really find such posts helpful. It's good to know which tools fellow developers use to accomplish similar tasks.

I also use the Clear Cache, JSON View, and Grammarly extensions. I wonder what extension do you use for your new tab? Also, don't you block ads?

I use have been using DailyNowCo as my new tab extension for more than a year now. It helps me save tons of time by helping me stay up to date with all new development news. I would definitely recommend checking it out.

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coly010 profile image
Colum Ferry

I don't block ads. As annoying and potentially privacy-invading as they are, there are people who genuinely rely on income generated from ads to support themselves.

I know a lot of the extensions allow for whitelisting sites to show ads on, but I'm lazy and listing all sites that are from people I want to support or from sites that can't be used at all unless the ad-blocker is turned off is too much effort.

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saqibameen profile image
Saqib Ameen

You are right about the fact that there are some people doing really great and rely on ads for income. I try whitelisting the sites which produce good content and I want to support. But for the most part on the web, I find ads annoying.

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ama profile image
Adrian Matei • Edited

Hey Saqib,

I use Brave - highly recommend it, so it blocks ads automatically, unless opt in to see ads for BATs (Basic Attention Tokens). I used DailyNow before, I'll give it another try - thanks for the reminder.

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saqibameen profile image
Saqib Ameen

Ever since I have started using Chrome (more than 7y) I didn't use any browser. Would you mind sharing why you prefer Brave? I have heard of it but never tried. Especially, how good is it in terms of supporting web APIs and providing web development tools?

Sure, Daily improves constantly and I can't recommend it enough! BTW great work at bookmarks.dev 🙌

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ama profile image
Adrian Matei

It is Chromium-based, so the Developer Tools and Extensions work the same as in Chrome. I use it for privacy reasons and performance (before all on my phone). It's worth trying...

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saqibameen profile image
Saqib Ameen

That makes sense. Thank you so much for sharing, I will definitely try it out.

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attkinsonjakob profile image
Jakob Attkinson

While I think Brave is amazing and I use it as my main browser while working, my daily driver has been Vivaldi for almost a year now. I started to love Vivaldi's level of customization a lot. From search bar at the top of bottomm to quick notes on pages and a focus mode, Vivaldi has been a best for me.

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loujaybee profile image
Lou (🚀 Open Up The Cloud ☁️)

Sweeeet, Octotree is now installed! A couple more that I personally would struggle without:

Display Anchors — Surprisingly useful for seeing and sharing anchor links.

Bookmark Bar Switcher — Good if you've got multiple contexts. I have one for work, guitar, cdertain projects etc.

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aleksandrhovhannisyan profile image
Aleksandr Hovhannisyan

ColorZilla is definitely my favorite for color work :) I also run StayFocusd and uBlock Origin, though they have nothing to do with dev specifically.

Also, as a copy editor, I have to strongly disagree with Grammarly. I've given it sample writing out of curiosity in the past, and it's always made egregious errors and "improvements" that made the writing worse.

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ama profile image
Adrian Matei

Thanks for your input, I use it mostly for spelling...

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trishul profile image
Trishul

Half of the extensions would not be required if you have Firefox 😎

  • Bookmark - right click => Bookmark this link (this can be synced across devices with Firefox accounts)
  • window resizer - right click => inspect element => responsive mode (right top of inspect element window)(size + throttle)
  • JSONview - default for and JSON link (try this in Firefox jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos/1)
  • window resizer - right click => inspect element - color picker/eyedropper icon (next to search HTML)
  • CSS viewer - right click => inspect element - rules and computed rules
  • Clear cache - right click => inspect element => storage (if you are really lazy extension helps)
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sparkedx profile image
Sparkdex

Wait what ?
That's something one can easily do in chrome too and not Firefox exclusive

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meghsohor profile image
Shafiqul Islam Shuvo

Did you ever use Chrome? Lol!

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trishul profile image
Trishul

True, but my point is we do not need extensions for these native stuff.

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georgewl profile image
George WL

Another recommend for me personally, FormFiller by Hussain Shabbir

github.com/husainshabbir/form-filler

It's saved me so much time when testing forms I've made.

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ama profile image
Adrian Matei • Edited

Perfect, thanks. That's a nice one - I think I'll add it to the list...

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forcursiv profile image
Andrew

For me, another must-have extension is Video Speed Controller

github.com/igrigorik/videospeed

saves a lot of time and hotkeys are the same for all websites :)

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ama profile image
Adrian Matei

Convinced - it's now on the list...

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ama profile image
Adrian Matei

Sweet - thanks

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digeomel profile image
digeomel

In addition to the ones you already mentioned:

  • Wappalyzer
  • Angular state inspector
  • Daily 2.0 - Source for Busy Developers
  • JetBrains IDE Support
  • Page Ruler Redux
  • Save to Pocket
  • WhatFont
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otomer profile image
Tomer Ovadia • Edited

Thank you for sharing it, check out My 12 Favorite Chrome Extensions as a Web Developer ⚡🚀 dev.to/otomer/my-12-favorite-chrom...

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rihan profile image
Rihan

Isn't Lighthouse built into Chromium's Dev tools?

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ama profile image
Adrian Matei • Edited

Apparently yes, thanks for pointing that out. You need to go to Dev Tools > Audits...

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camfilho profile image
Carlos Augusto de Medeir Filho

Interesting list