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"This series is supported by Rackspace, the better way to do hosting. Learn more about Rackspace's hosting solutions here.\nWe searched forums, blogs, and Twitter to find out which Firefox add-ons are most popular with web developers, and we came up with this top 10 list.\nEvery plug-in on the list offers outstanding utility to developers who install them in their browsers.  In fact, some of them are even considered indispensable. And they're all available as free downloads for Firefox, right now.\nIf you know any other developer staples that didn't make our top 10, be sure to share them with us and our other readers in the comments. And if you're more into Google Chrome, be sure to check out our list of 10 essential Chrome extensions for developers.\n1. Firebug\n\n\n\n\n\nWith Firebug, you can edit the CSS, HTML, and JavaScript on any web page live without navigating to a different application. Changes can be made and previewed in real-time. The add-on also comes with network activity analysis tools and a JavaScript performance profiler. Like the Firefox browser itself, Firebug can be extended with plug-ins that add new features.\n2. Web Developer\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Web Developer add-on is the most powerful and dynamic extension in this list; it adds a toolbar that lets you do numerous useful things.\nYou can disable Java, disable or view cookies, disable CSS, view styles, see detailed information on forms, disable images, find broken images, view JavaScript, display all kinds of behind-the-scenes information, edit HTML, show hidden elements, resize the window to a specified resolution, validate code and much more.\n3. ColorZilla\n\n\n\n\n\nColorZilla is a color picker that lives down in your browser's status bar. Just click the ColorZilla button and move the cursor over the color you want to find out about; you'll be given a reading that includes the color's RGB values and the hexadecimal code you need to duplicate the color on your own site. ColorZilla also includes a color wheel, a page zoomer and a measuring tool.\n4. HTML Validator\n\n\n\n\n\nHTML Validator appears as an icon in the status bar, and displays the number of HTML errors Firefox encountered when opening up a web page. You can then dive into the HTML code to investigate what caused the errors.\nBe warned that when you navigate to the Firefox add-on page for HTML Validator, you'll be told that the add-on isn't available for download for your operating system if you're a Mac or Linux user. Take a quick trip to the developer's website and you'll find versions for several platforms, though.\n5. FireFTP\n\n\n\n\n\nFireFTP is an adequately featured FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client that runs inside Firefox. When you execute it, it appears as an extra window just like Firefox's bookmark or download managers. Features aren't just limited to the basics; you can perform integrity checks or searches, sync directories while navigating, compare directories and so on. This add-on should meet the needs of the majority of FTP users.\n6. IE Tab\n\n\n\n\n\nMicrosoft\u2019s Internet Explorer web browser is barely used by web developers, but it\u2019s the most popular browser in the world at large. With IE Tab you can open any website in a tab that\u2019s actually running IE instead of Firefox. That way, you can more easily make sure your website runs correctly for millions of people who aren\u2019t using Firefox.\nNote that IE Tab is not available for Mac or Linux, since you need to have IE installed for it to work and there are not any currently supported versions of IE for non-Windows operating systems.\n7. MeasureIt\n\n\n\n\n\nWith MeasureIt, you can draw a rectangular ruler anywhere on the website to get the measurements (height and width) in pixels of any element or space. Similar functionality is offered by ColorZilla, so running both add-ons at the same time would be redundant, but this plug-in is nevertheless hugely popular.\n8. Greasemonkey\n\n\n\n\n\nGreasemonkey allows more advanced customization of your browser by executing custom JavaScript scripts that change the way websites are displayed. Hundreds of scripts are available, and many of them are tailored to specific websites. For example, we've covered the Facebook Friends Checker script in the past; it monitors your friends list when you're logged in to Facebook and notifies you when one has been removed.\n9. View Source Chart\n\n\n\n\n\nWhen you look at the source for a web page using Firefox's normal tools, you're given a massive block of barely-organized text; it's not very easy to scan and look for something specific. View Source Chart displays a web page's source code in a set of smartly divided, colored partitions. It visually represents tag boundaries and DOM structure so you can navigate efficiently without getting lost in the noise.\n10. Aardvark\n\n\n\n\n\nUse Aardvark to select elements on a website and perform any one of a broad selection of functions on them. You just click on an element and hit one of several keyboard shortcuts. Possibilities include hitting R to remove the element, W to widen it, I to isolate it or V to view the element's source. Hitting H for \"help\" brings up a list of all 14 shortcuts.\nSeries supported by Rackspace\n\nRackspace is the better way to do hosting. No more worrying about web hosting uptime. No more spending your time, energy and resources trying to stay on top of things like patching, updating, monitoring, backing up data and the like. Learn why."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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