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12 Must Have Browser Extensions for Developers

Simc Dev on July 29, 2022

One of the cool things about using Chrome as your default browser is all the extensions you can use. Google Chrome extensions are programs created ...
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Jon Randy 🎖️ • Edited

One of the cool things about using Chrome as your default browser is all the extensions you can use

Every single one of these is also available on other browsers. Some of the functionality provided by them is actually built in to Firefox.

This isn't a criticism of you personally, but people should really stop writing posts as if Chrome has a monopoly on useful browser extensions, because this simply isn't the case. The framework used to write browser extensions is almost exactly the same between browsers - and as a result, most extensions are available for most browsers.

Chrome (and other Chromium based browsers) are - unfortunately - monopolising the browser space. This can only be a bad thing for user choice and for the advancement of browsers in general. This situation is not helped by the endless parade of articles written that refer only to Chrome, when almost everything in the article is also relevant to other browsers.

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Matthieu Rolland • Edited

Chromium based extensions are indeed compatible with all chromium based browsers...(chrome, brave, edge, etc...)

But firefox is not chromium based, I'm not sure you can juste install a chrome extension on firefox, and it's not rare that an extension exists on chrome and not on firefox (and vice versa)

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Jon Randy 🎖️ • Edited

I'm not sure you can juste install a chrome extension on firefox

You pretty much can. I'm a maintainer of an extension. The code is identical between the Chrome and Firefox versions. The only difference is the way the code is packaged up for distribution. A standardisation process took place a good while back to ensure much greater compatibility, and a fairly standard extension API implemented by most browsers.

The fact that it's not rare that extensions exist only on one browser is precisely my point. Most posts are written very much like this one, actively praising Chrome whilst failing to mention that the exact same extensions (or functionalities) are available on other browsers - giving the misleading impression that these browsers are inferior with respect to extensions/add-ons.

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webbureaucrat

Extensions are a security risk. You should only use them for tools that need that kind of elevated privilege.

It's a really bad practice to install things like a lorem ipsum generator or a JSON utility when those things are readily available in a way that doesn't compromise your browser.

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Cybertron

Mozilla Firefox Developer Edition has most of dev tools built right into them. Awesome recommendations though, cheers

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Simc Dev

Cheers

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Samuelrivaldo

Thanks 🙏

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Simc Dev

Cheers

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Adem Kouki

Great recommendations! I would like to add BetterViewer
producthunt.com/products/betterviewer

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The_Keizzmann😁🎹🎹💻

Great recommendations, wappalyzer is a must. It helps me a lot to find tools for specific features i wish to have in an application that i've seen in previous apps.

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Simc Dev

Cheers

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Thomas Månsson

I would recommend HTTPie instead of JSONView as an browser extension.

httpie.io

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Simc Dev

Cheers