I would assume that, at least in this regard, I am like most web developers:
I use Firefox as my primary development browser because it was the first to offer all the Add-ons that made my life soooo much easier, and I could no longer imagine doing my job without these tools. Naturally, I just went ahead and used Firefox for my regular browsing too, cause, you know, you never know when you’re going to want to Inspect someone’s Element, right?
The challenge with Firefox then became that it got slower and slower, and upgrading usually meant saying good-bye to some of the Add-ons that you relied on so heavily, so, eventually, you found yourself stuck on this remote island: I want to upgrade my Firefox, but don’t want to lose my Add-ons…
I finally got sick of this situation and, thanks to having to work in a WebKit browser lately for a specific project, I have slowly fallen in love with Google Chrome. Their developer panel has finally caught up with, if not surpassed, Firebug in nearly all aspects, and I have also found a series of Extensions that mirror everything I needed from Firefox’s Add-ons.
Here is my list, feel free to share any others that you feel you couldn’t live without:
Firebug– Yeah, like I said earlier, possibly the best Chrome Extension is the one that isn’t an Extension at all, it just comes with the browser!- Web Developer– Yes, one of what I consider to be the two most important Firefox Add-ons ever created, this is the Chrome version of Chris Pederick‘s toolbar. I must say, I like Firefox’s version better, easier to use I think, as a consistent toolbar and with keyboard shortcuts, but at least I have it.
- Eye Dropper – To sample colors from whatever is in your browser window
- Measure It! – Measure stuff that is in your browser window
- Microformats – I know, I know… why? I just can’t quite let go yet…
- Status Bar – Not really a developer helper, but nice to see full links before clicking them (though I may dump this one, it’s annoying in Gmail, because status bars are created for each of the
IFRAMEs that drive Gmail…) - Awesome Screenshot – Really helpful, and very easy to use.
Also really cool, and something I had been looking for in Firefox since I started downloading Add-ons, is the ability to synch Add-ons across various computers, like you could with Bookmark synching, but that also is built-in to Chrome.
So, which of your fave Extensions am I missing?
Happy Chroming,
Atg
There are plenty of ways to fix that add-on compatibility problem. After all, being a Nightly UX user and all, I’ve found that almost all of them work, and the only one that doesn’t work, isn’t really important *Which is Greasefire, Greasemonkey works perfectly*, nearly all work perfectly. An easy way around the so-called “Incompatibility” problem is similar to this
http://lifehacker.com/355973/make-your-extensions-work-with-the-firefox-35
Although, it’s a bit difference, you just add a new boolean value called
extensions.checkCompatibility.(Version Number) and set it to false. There’s not much to it, even to a newbie, there are plenty of guides that will help you through it. Even if you’re afraid to touch about:config, you can install both Add-on Compatibility Reporter, which, I think, comes default now with Firefox, and Nightly Testing Tools.
@theif519: Great tips, thanks, will have a look at these options, but I was more speaking toward how far Chrome has come.
Cheers,
Atg
Aren’t you concerned with the fact that Google monitors all traffic going through their Chrome browsers?
I’d never use Chrome for that reason: a price I don’t want to pay, as long as FireFox does the job just fine.
@Wappie:
Not particularly… If you use Google to search, they’re tracking you there, so what’s the difference?
Atg
The difference is that not just your searches but all your traffic is monitored from within Chrome. But it seems to be possible to turn it off now…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#Reception
ah, nice tracking, Wappie!
thx,
Atg
I had a similar journey, it was hard letting of of my beloved Firefox but in the end Chrome is just a better browser. I have the exact same extensions you mentioned plus one more for window resizing. Web Developer can do this but I like just having the button:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kkelicaakdanhinjdeammmilcgefonfh
Thanks, Cam, installed Resize Window, will give it a go!
Atg