Hello devs, I'm Seif. I have been a frontend developer for well over 5 years now and throughout my journey I came across a lot of chrome extensions that claimes to be useful but they are actually not or you won't use for your day-to-day tasks.
In this article, I'll be sharing 12 of my favorite chrome extensions that I actually use and find very helpful to keep me productive, not waste time and help me with my development as well.
Grepper
Grepper is my favorite extension of them all. Whenever I google search for a problem all the correct code answers come up at the top of my google search. It's incredible. It's a must-have.
Amino Live CSS Editor
Animo is a step ahead of CSSViewer. It allows you to write custom CSS for ANY website and see your changes in real-time. You can customize everything colors, fonts, layouts. You name it. Incredible!
Octotree
This extension is exactly like how it is marketed! It is GitHub on steroids. Helps you with code review and folder navigation in a fast, efficient, and customizable manner. It adds a sidebar on your left and surprisingly it integrates seamlessly with Github. I mainly use it for project navigation, to be honest.
Talend API Tester
Just like Postman, it's used to check communication with REST, HTTP, and SOAP APIs. Since Postman extension is deprecated this is a very nice alternative to Postman if you don't want to install Postman Desktop app.
JSON Viewer
The only reason I use JSON Viewer over JSON Formatter is because of the customization capabilities that JSON Viewer offers from themes, fonts, font size, etc. you can customize your JSON however you want.
React Dev Tools
If you are a React developer, you must have this extension. It allows you to inspect the React component hierarchies in the Chrome Developer Tools. my favorite two features are Highlight updates when components render in the Components tab and Profiler for performance monitoring.
Redux Dev Tools
Similar to React Dev Tools. If you use Redux then Redux Dev Tools is a must-have. It helps you debug your application's state changes.
ColorZilla
ColorZilla is very useful If you want to read a color code from any website or if you want to generate a quick gradient color. you can do that easily in ColorZilla. ColorZilla has a lot more capabilities like Color History, Keyboard shortcuts, etc. Awesome tool!
LastPass
LastPass is a password manager, saves your passwords and gives you secure access from any computer and mobile device. I love it since I have a memory of a fish this is a lifesaver! and it has a Desktop app that integrates with the extension. Highly recommended.
Grammarly
Grammarly helps you eliminate writing errors and spelling mistakes in real-time in nearly every platform you'll find yourself writing in. Grammarly offers you specific suggestions to help you improve your writing overall. If you struggle with your grammar (like I do), this is a very useful tool to have.
Momentum
Momentum replaces your new tab page with a personal dashboard featuring to-do, images, and inspirational quotes. It inspires you to be more productive. I find it way better than your average bland new tab page!
Toggl
Toggl is a time tracker that adds a timer into any web tool and allows quick real-time productivity tracking with all the data stored on your Toggl account on the cloud. very useful if you want to keep track of the time you spend on certain activities or tasks.
This is the end of my list. I hope you enjoyed this article. I'm always open to feedback so let's share thoughts in the comment section.
Follow me on Github @seifeldeen92 and Instagram @sman92
Top comments (24)
Hey, I launched
Note Box- A chrome extension to add notes/todos based on URL. You can read more about it herePlease support if you like it.
Thanks.
That looks really good! will try it out for sure 👏🏻
Thanks :)
Since you mentioned a Postman alternative, we are building an open source {free} Postman alternative: Hoppscotch - API request builder for web.
👽 Open source API development ecosystem https://hoppscotch.io
LastPass is awful. 1Password is infinitely better
I have been using LastPass Family for few years and I am satisfied with the product.
Of course UX could be better but at this point of time I am lazy for the effort to move anywhere else for Password Management
If I ditch LastPass someday, I would definitely go for some Open Source solution and I hear about Bitwarden very often in this space.
Thanks, @jonrandy for your recommendation. I have been using LastPass for 3 years now and tbh I'm really satisfied with it.
Why you find LastPass awful?
Well, I know it provides essentially the same functionality, but everything feels just better with 1Password. The flows of the interactions. The user interface. The browser integration. The mobile integration. Everything feels just wayyyy slicker and easy to use.
I had to start using LastPass recently at a new job, and it really is clunky and awful in comparison
Interesting i may give 1Password a go
Let me suggest Myki xD Best password manager I've ever seen.
Plus : decentralized password store between devices.
Great list of extensions @seifeldeen92
I would recommend one last extension: PictureInPicture by Google
Enables PiP in almost all the websites for any Chromium based browser.
Thank you!
Pip looks good. Very nice recommendation! i will give it a try
Interesting article :)
Thank you! :)
Thank you 🤝🏻
Thanks for take the time to write this article! Surely I will check several of this!
the first one is amazing!
It's ridiculous how good Grepper is!
Try DuckDuckGo, it does this without the additional extension. You might like it.
Thanks very much.
I found these extensions very useful too 👍
Anytime time, Toggl is really good, one of my favs of this list for sure
Thank you, I'll try it.