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10+ Awesome Firefox Extensions for Developers and Bloggers


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Firefox’s variety of useful extensions makes it the browser of choice for many website developers and blog operators. I’ve used Firefox for close to five years now and I’ve utilized a number of extremely helpful third party plug-ins and extensions to simplify development and website operation.

Today I’m going to run down my list of the 10 extensions that I’ve used and found to be the most helpful.

EDIT: I’ve added Firebug and Web Developer Toolbar to this list, by popular demand.

  1. FireBug – Edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
  2. Web Developer Toolbar – Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools. I used this add-on for a long time prior to Firefox 2.0. I found its pixel measuring tool to be useful and back when I did table design I used its outlining/bordering tool to help me adjust that flow-based layouts. I’ll have to relearn how to use this sucker for the new methodologies I use for client-end design.
  3. Seoquake – Seoquake is one of the most powerful tools available for analyzing your website’s Search Engine Optimization results. It will help you determine what your Google PageRank score is, how many pages on your site are indexed, how many external sites link to yours, similar statistics for Yahoo and Live.com, your Alexa ranking, your del.icio.us vote count (for specific pages), and mountains of other data. I’m still finding out more and more about this tool, but I think this is by far and large one of the most powerful extensions available to web developers.
  4. ColorZilla – Have you ever seen a really interesting color on a website and try to find out what it is? ColorZilla gives you the ability to simple use a “color picker” to mouse over the desired color and capture it’s hex value. This extension has proved to a real time saver and I’ve used it longer than any of the other extensions or plug-ins on this list (since late 2004).
  5. Alexa Sparky - Another traffic analysis tool, brought to you by Alexa, Amazon.com’s traffic ranking service. I like this plugin simply because of the trend graph that it places in the bottom right corner of your browser window, but it also has some helpful features, such as determining what sites are similar to yours.
  6. Session Manager – I keep many tabs open on my Firefox sessions at all times, and if my computer has to restart or if something crashes I can lose potentially valuable information if I am unable to find those pages again. Session manager automatically saves your sessions and in the event of a crash or a reboot it can restore all of the tabs in the session for you.
  7. IE View Lite – There are a lot of developers out there who wish Internet Explorer would either accept the W3C standards or just go away, but unfortunately a large portion of Internet users are Internet Explorer users. IE View Lite allows you to right click on any given page and gives you the option to view this page in a new Internet Explorer window. IE View Lite is a powerful tool for cross-browser testing and validation. I prefer using IE View over IE Tab, which runs Internet Explorer within a tab in Firefox, simply because IE tab has some quirks (i.e. it reverts back to Firefox if you press Firefox’s reload button while focused on an IE Tab) and you don’t get full access to all of IE’s options with IE Tab.
  8. FireFTP – FireFTP is simply an FTP client built into the Firefox browser. It’s free, it’s simple, it’s reliable, and I can flip to FireFTP just like any other tab on the browser.
  9. Greasemonkey – Greasemonkey is arguably the most powerful Firefox extension. Greasemonkey allows you to apply custom JavaScripts to pages within your browser; for instance there are scripts to declutter your Facebook homepage, hide Gmail lables, and hide Netflix reviews. I use Greasemonkey to make it easier to navigate social network sites when promoting my blog. You can view the directory of Greasemonkey scripts at Userscripts.org.
  10. Download Status Bar – When I download Wordpress plug-ins for my blog, I usually do so in intervals of 3-5 plug-ins at a time. I use Download status bar to give me instant access to my completed downloads without having to hunt them down using Windows Explorer. I try to save time in every way possible.
  11. StumbleUpon – While I don’t believe in spamming social tagging sites in everyway possible, I always make sure I am the first to submit my own articles to StumbleUpon. Why? Because the first StumbleUpon review is crucial to getting the correct demographic to view your site, since the categorization of the “stumble” occurs during the first review instance. It’s better that you, the author of the site, write the first review and categorize it accordingly, rather than put it in the hands of someone who may be viewing your site for the first time. In addition StumbleUpon sends more users to your site on average than Digg does, according to ProBlogger.
  12. Extended Cookie Manager and Cache Status – I use the Extended Cookie Manager and the Extended Cache Manager to help me debug my site when I’m running into connectivity issues, such as the trouble I ran into with my MySQL connection bombing out in IIS.

Just to let you guys know that I’m not full of it, here’s a screenshot of the extensions list on my desktop after I reloaded it.

Firefox Extensions

What are your favorite Firefox extensions or add-ons? I’ll check em out and release a new list down the stretch!

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Comments 37

  1. K-IntheHouse wrote:

    Thanks for the cool list. I do a weekly or bi-weekly picks of Firefox extensions if you’d like to check out. I should update my favorite extensions page (linked to my name) soon.

    Sorry for all the link plugs but you asked about my favorites. :-)

    Posted 31 Aug 2007 at 3:24 pm
  2. Sleeping Dude wrote:

    Thanks for the list. I rarely have time to go and check every new plug-in myself, so lists like this (and from a trusted source) definitely save my time.

    Posted 01 Sep 2007 at 3:02 am
  3. Aaronontheweb wrote:

    K-IntheHouse,

    I checked out your list of Firefox extensions; very cool! And no I absolutely do not mind people plugging content on their own blog when it’s relevant to what I’m writing about!

    Sleeping Dude,

    No problem. I’ve been using these extensions for helping run my site for a couple of months now. SeoQuake is by far the most valuable out of that entire list. I’m recommending it to all of my clients and friends who run websites. The second most valuable out of all of them is probably FireFTP.

    Posted 01 Sep 2007 at 1:12 pm
  4. Asd wrote:

    Extensions for bloggers not developers really.

    Number 1 extension for a developer is Firebug

    Posted 07 Sep 2007 at 9:26 am
  5. Arnold Daniels wrote:

    Of all that extensions I’ve got 1 installed, download toolbar, and that’s not specifically for developers. From all the others, I can only see the use of IE view. You must be a different kind of developing thing than I am.

    My list of recommended addons for developers would be:
    1.) Firebug. This is *the* plugin for developers. Don’t leave home without it.
    2.) Web developer toolbar. Disable JS, disable/clear cookies, rulers and guides. Just a bundle of useful stuff.
    3.) Tamper Data. See the HTTP strings and get the possibility to modify them, how cool is that.
    4.) Selenium toolbar. Test automation right in your browser. I don’t like pressing the same 10 button 50 times, do you?
    5.) Johnnycache. Stop caching for your own projects without disabling it for the entire net.

    Other nice addons I have include User agent switcher, Quick locale switcher, Fire encrypter, Firefox showcase and Timestamp convertor.

    Posted 07 Sep 2007 at 10:15 pm
  6. Aaronontheweb wrote:

    Daniel,

    I’ll check those extensions out and build a new list in the near future.

    As for the intended audience of this list, it’s really more for website proprietors and operators than developers, now that I think about it. Some of the stuff on there is for CSS and session management but mostly it’s tools for leveraging and promoting your own blog or website and metrics for measuring the effectiveness of your promotion.

    I’ll give more thought to the title in the future.

    Posted 07 Sep 2007 at 10:18 pm
  7. vruz wrote:

    if it didn’t make to the top-10, your eleventh add-on should be

    http://www.screengrab.org

    really useful stuff

    Posted 08 Sep 2007 at 3:34 pm
  8. Sephyroth wrote:

    I’ve downloaded the Web Developer toolbar, and it’s come quite in handy. My favorite feature of it is the resize function; it’s useful when you’ve turned off the “allow scripts to resize your windows” option for Javascript.

    Another extension that I’ve installed which comes in handy is SearchStatus – it’s another way to get PageRank, and it also highlights nofollow links, and shows you the rank for compete and alexa.

    Posted 08 Sep 2007 at 4:20 pm
  9. Ruthie wrote:

    How about Firebug? It regularly saves my rear end as I try to debug xhtml/css-based layouts (”Why is that 5px margin there? How come the rules I just wrote aren’t being rendered properly?”)

    Check it out here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843

    Posted 08 Sep 2007 at 4:36 pm
  10. Aaronontheweb wrote:

    Wow a lot of comments just started rolling in; must have something to do with that lifehacker article.

    @Vuz,

    I used screen grab for a long time on this computer (two years) and didn’t really find it to be that useful. I could see the value in it given that it can render an image of the entire page, beyond what I can see with the active pane of my browser, but rarely did I ever need to use it. I just press the windows key plus print screen to take screen shots of content that I later crop for my blog entries.

    @Sephyroth,

    I used an older version of the web developer toolbar for a long time and removed it as a result of some incompatibility issues when I upgraded to Firefox 2.0. I’ll take another look at it.

    I’ll also take a look at SearchStatus, although I am VERY fond of SEO Quake.

    @Ruthie and everyone else asking about Firebug,

    I just installed it; it sounds great, and I can’t wait to check it out. Thanks for recommending it!

    Posted 08 Sep 2007 at 4:49 pm
  11. Eric wrote:

    Hi. These are all good extensions, BUT… As a long time web developer you forgot THE most important one of all.. Way more useful than the ones listed… As mentioned in a previous post, it is the Web Developer toolbar. By far the most useful.

    Posted 08 Sep 2007 at 5:51 pm
  12. Alek Davis wrote:

    Isn’t session manager built into Firefox 2.0? I think I used the Session Manager extension in Firefox 1.5, but after upgrading to 2.0, I don’t think it is necessary. BTW, I can recommend a few more extensions (and info about problematic extensions) at http://alekdavis.blogspot.com/2007/05/recommended-firefox-add-ons.html

    Posted 09 Sep 2007 at 12:26 am
  13. Craig wrote:

    1. Firebug
    2. Firebug
    3. Firebug

    Posted 09 Sep 2007 at 12:42 am
  14. Aaronontheweb wrote:

    @Alek,

    I’m not sure; Firefox 2.0 might automatically restore sessions after crashes, but it won’t give you the option to explicitly store sessions like how session manager will. I’ll save specific sessions when I need to save a series of tabs side by side.

    Posted 09 Sep 2007 at 12:45 am
  15. Aaronontheweb wrote:

    @Craig,

    I’m using Firebug now for digging through my own CSS and I love it. Thanks for recommending it.

    Posted 09 Sep 2007 at 12:47 am
  16. agmon wrote:

    i would like FIer fox to give an add on that will collect information on me the user and will send it automatically to outer space

    - take a pause and save yourself for ever- perhaps you will find a better life in outer space-
    Upload a file to http://www.beinspace.com give it a name a and a link to your site
    And this information will live for ever in outer space.

    Posted 09 Sep 2007 at 2:24 am
  17. Manu wrote:

    You might wanna include the following as well:

    1. Aardvark Extension for Firefox as well.
    2.X-Ray

    3. Web Developer

    if one is using the Web Developer extension,

    Posted 09 Sep 2007 at 5:43 am
  18. trench wrote:

    Although I like your listed add-ons, most don’t seem to me to really be developer add-ons.

    How can a top ten not include either Firebug or Web Developer? That’s crazy, dude. Hell, Web Developer has been the premier webdev extension/add-on since before FF 1.0 was officially released.

    And regarding “session manager”, I do believe all FF releases since 2.0 have had “session-restore” built-in, making the add-on you recommended completely irrelevant (so far as I can see).

    Another add-on that I use for developing, as well as other stuff, is a wonderful add-on called “Signature”. It was originally intended to give the user right-click context menu options in text fields that allow you to auto-include a limitless number of custom “signatures”… (i.e., you right-click, and get to choose signatures that you’ve custom-written for forums and blogs and such). The wonderful webdev aspect of this is that you can create code snippets instead of sigs if you want. Less typing always = good in my book.

    Non-webdev add-ons that come in handy are the following:

    “Answers.com” – Alt+left-click any word on any page and an iframe pops up with the answers.com synopses definition of the word from various sources, such as wikipedia, etc… and it also gives you a link to the answers.com page with the full listing of results.

    “foxytunes” – if you browse the web and listen to music at the same time, don’t even ask any questions – DL this add-on ASAP. It was voted best add-on of ‘06 and just continues to get better. Newest release includes a greasemonkey-esque feature that places a nice little icon under text-fields (i.e., blogs, comments, etc…) so that you can auto-insert a “what I’m listening to right now” sig that includes a link to the song’s “foxytunes planet” page which shows you song/artist info from youtube, wikipedia, flickr, lastfm, etc… all on one page.

    And

    “Tab Scope” – Allows you to see LIVE previews of pages when you hover over their tabs. Meaning, instead of just seeing a screen cap, you see a tiny preview of the actual page including scrolling and refresh capabilities (inside the tiny preview) making tab navigation so much more enjoyable.

    Sorry I’m too lazy to actually include links, but Google isn’t. All of these are easily searchable by using their name (which I’ve put in quotes) and the word “add-on” as Google keywords.

    Posted 09 Sep 2007 at 7:00 am
  19. devnic wrote:

    How can you forget or not list Firebug extension which I believe is the foremost extension in the the list of web developers. I can not imagine working without this extension whether I am writing javascript based code or css based code.

    Posted 09 Sep 2007 at 7:43 am
  20. Shawn wrote:

    Without a doubt, FIREBUG should be #1 on the list.

    Posted 09 Sep 2007 at 7:44 am
  21. Bart Nelis wrote:

    I missed firebug, but also live http headers (i agree firebug has some functionality in that area as well, but still like live http headers…

    For the download status bar: doesn’ t seem so useful to me. When i download something with firefox, I do ctrl J to open downloads window: I then right click any of the downloaded files and choose ‘open containing folder’, so opening file explorer and hunting down that dir.

    Posted 09 Sep 2007 at 8:27 am
  22. alexis wrote:

    What about firebug, webdeveloper, measureit !

    Posted 09 Sep 2007 at 11:12 am
  23. alexis wrote:

    screengrub an the other does not include Flash, for me this is important

    Posted 09 Sep 2007 at 11:13 am
  24. Dell wrote:

    I would defiantly say the Web Developer toolbar

    Posted 09 Sep 2007 at 1:51 pm
  25. Heather wrote:

    I have to agree with everyone who has expressed the sentiment Firebug, Firebug, Firebug. It has changed. My. Life.

    Posted 10 Sep 2007 at 4:06 am
  26. chocolim wrote:

    firebug and webdeveloper toolbar

    Posted 10 Sep 2007 at 11:24 am
  27. hasse wrote:

    You dont need measureit when you have web developer, it’s located in the ‘miscellaneous bar’ -> display ruler

    Posted 10 Sep 2007 at 12:10 pm
  28. alexis wrote:

    Display ruler does not support frames

    Posted 10 Sep 2007 at 2:40 pm
  29. Arnold Daniels wrote:

    Why are you working with frames? Do you link extra load for your server?

    Posted 10 Sep 2007 at 8:01 pm
  30. alexis wrote:

    No, I´m only want to know I can measure whatever I like…
    In the otherside… Gmail use frames.

    If you say I cannot measure flash swf’s inside a page I can accept that for MeasureIt

    Posted 10 Sep 2007 at 11:20 pm
  31. Donald Mckenzie Jr wrote:

    Thanks a lot for the information. I currently use firefox and I have not utilized it to it’s fullest extent. I will go through and get all those plug-ins you have gone through. Thanks again.

    Posted 14 Sep 2007 at 7:30 am
  32. Steven Snell wrote:

    Nice list. I would also add the new social media extension.

    Posted 16 Sep 2007 at 6:38 pm
  33. Geek Talk wrote:

    Firebug and WebDeveloper have proven the most popular extensions in my office for the past year or so, but seoquake and colorzilla look as though they could prove to be two equally massive timesavers.

    Thanks for the list!

    Posted 16 Sep 2007 at 10:05 pm
  34. itssri wrote:

    Thank you for your list. Here are 2 of my favorite, must have extensions for Firefox:

    1. Flashgot
    2. Forecastfox

    With regards.

    Posted 22 Sep 2007 at 5:36 am
  35. Tyler Clendenin wrote:

    UrlParams
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1290

    Have you ever wanted to edit the get or post variables on a page? This add on is perfect for doing just that.

    Add N Edit Cookies
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/573

    View, Create, Delete cookies quick and easy. Just install it to see the power.

    Posted 27 Sep 2007 at 4:15 pm
  36. Lola wrote:

    Great list, thanks.

    Posted 01 Oct 2007 at 8:40 am
  37. Firefox 2 wrote:

    Sweet list Mr. Ninja, a personal favorite of mine though, is the web developer toolbar. As a designer I couldn’t live without it.

    Posted 21 May 2008 at 7:28 pm

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