For the last five years or so I have been using Firefox religiously for web development. I mean, there is no other browser that gets the job done better or has better tools to gain visibility of what lies under the hood, right? That is what I thought until I gave it a try just recently.
The truth of the matter is that I have been casually using Chrome here and there especially when I was at home or during my off hours. One thing that is quickly evident from using Chrome versus any other browser is that it is faster. Since I am always obsessed with web speed, this is a very attractive offerings. However, up until now, I was never able to find replacements to several Firefox extensions that are on my must-have list for web development.
Since I have a lot of extensions piled up on my Firefox browser, I decided to narrow it down to the most essential must-have extensions for web development. Going through the list, it would be: Firebug, Web Developer, and one of the web speed extensions that provide some visibility on how to make a website respond faster. Well, today I was surprised to find a replacement to all of these and even more. Here they are:
1. Firebug Lite
Yes, Firebug has a version of its web development tool that is now available for Chrome. This is the Firebug Lite. Somewhere I was also able to find a Chrombug extension but I was not clear if this is from the same creators of Firebug and I wasn’t able to find it on the Chrome Extensions and Apps website. Back to Firebug Lite – it is Lite because it lacks 4 main features such as JS debugger, Net Panel, Access to restricted URI resources, and Highlighting HTML changes. Frankly I don’t care about these except the Net Panel – which I use every once in a while. But I can live with it. Plus, a quick test really worked well and it even kept the whole interface the same which is great for me!
Well guess what – this was the easiest because the same extension is now offered to Chrome and it looks the same and works the same. It even has the same menu which I programmed in Firefox to be hidden unless I triggered it. With this one I scored because it even works as I need it to.
Ok, this is not an easy one to find or understand how it works but once you install it and get it to work – the amount of info I would get from it is purely amazing. The specific extension I am referring to is called Speed Tracer by Google. Maybe one day I will review it but for now if you manage to download it and install it (there is a switch you need to turn on when loading Chrome in order for it to work properly) – you will see what I am talking about.
So, overall I think I go to a place where I am comfortable start using Chrome as my main Web Development browser. However, only time will tell as I just discovered these great extensions. I’ll keep you posted as I discover more. What is your main web development browser?
Still with Chrome!