But when I upgraded from Firefox 3.5.7 to 3.6 the other day, I discovered that a few of the add-ons that weren’t yet compatible were important to me. In fact, they had become such an integral part of my daily workflow that I was significantly slowed down without them. Luckily, almost all of the add-ons were updated within a couple of days so I’m back up to speed now, but I realized how much I missed them when they weren’t available. In this post I’m going to share the add-ons that I find it hard to be without.

Some of us at WWD have ditched Firefox in favor of the faster Chrome, but until these add-ons are also available in Chrome for Mac, I won’t switch. In the meantime, I’m sticking with Firefox, and hoping that 3.6, the newest version, lives up to its claims of increased speed.

Mozilla Prism. This add-on allows me to create a site-specific browser for locations I visit frequently. I’ve used it to create a “Google Reader” application that appears in my dock, can be placed in a separate Space, and operates separately from Firefox. I’m not sure why Mozilla hasn’t updated this yet; I’m using Chrome to view Google Reader for now.

LastPass. This password manager not only keeps track of my passwords, it syncs them between browsers and computers. I imagine most web workers have as many passwords as I do — they’d be impossible to keep track of without a program like LastPass. I also use 1Password for the Mac, and sync its data using Dropbox, figuring that it doesn’t hurt to keep such important data in multiple places.

Xmarks. This handy extension syncs my bookmarks between browsers and computers.

Adblock Plus. I appreciate all of the content that is available on the web, including WebWorkerDaily, thanks to the support of advertisers. But some sites have such obtrusive advertising that they are unusable. Google (which makes most of its money from advertising) is allowing ad blockers in its Chrome browser in the hope that advertisers will make “useful” ads that no one will want to block. Until then, Adblock Plus is a necessity for me.

Gmail Manager. This is the Firefox add-on that I use the most. It’s the best way I know to manage multiple Gmail and Google Apps mail accounts.

I’ll also add two tools that are incredibly helpful to web developers: Firebug and Web Developer. Both help me and my colleagues to test and debug web sites.

…and finally, Cards. Well, OK, I guess I can live without this one, but I’ll have find something else to do while I’m on the phone.

What browser add-ons do you rely on?

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While Chrome can’t yet match Firefox’s massive extension ecosystem, more useful extensions are becoming available for Google’s browser every day. Here are my must-have extensions for the new Google Chrome user:

Brizzly. Since I am trying to better integrate Twitter and Facebook into my professional communications in 2010, the Brizzly extension, which is a Twitter and Facebook reading/updating tool, ranks as a must-have in my book.

Shareaholic for Google Chrome. This extension lets you share web pages through major social media sites and other services, like Gmail and Evernote.

Google Apps Shortcuts. This shortcut provides easy access to all of your Google Apps, including Google Wave and Google Voice. You can even begin creating new email, documents, spreadsheets and presentations using this extension.

Evernote Web Clipper. We’ve written about Evernote in the past, and the Evernote extension provides the same web clipping functionality you already enjoy in Mozilla Firefox and in Internet Explorer. I use the web clipper whenever I want to capture research from the web.

Xmarks Bookmarks Sync. One of the biggest draws of Firefox for me was the capability to sync bookmarks across my home office PCs. Now with the Xmarks Bookmarks Sync extension you can have the same feature using Chrome.

Aviary Screen Capture. I take a lot of screen captures, and like the fact that Aviary Screen capture lets you capture and manipulate screen captures from within Google Chrome.

Bit.ly. This extension comes in handy if you need fast access to a URL shortener. Clicking on the Bit.ly extension launches a sidebar:

html2pdf. This extension enables you to save the HTML page you are viewing to PDF. I find this extension handy when I want to save a receipt or a piece of research.

Google Reader Notifier. Google Reader is my RSS reader of choice, so the Google Reader Notifier Extension was a natural choice for me.

TooMany Tabs for Chrome. I’ve been known to keep way too many browser tabs open especially when I am in full-on research and writing mode. TooMany Tabs for Chrome helps to keep me organized and my computer’s memory usage in check.

What are your favorite Chrome extensions?

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These numbers indicate that a large number of people use more than one browser. This is hardly surprising, given the addition of newer browsers like Google Chrome and Safari for Windows, and the recent upgrade of Opera.

It’s evident that web designers and developers will continue to need to support multiple browsers, and while modern browsers are generally more compatible than they have been in the past, developers will need to plan testing of their applications accordingly.

Which browsers do you test your sites for?

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Finally, as Simon mentioned last week, we Apple fans have got a Chrome build near enough completion to get worked up about. It isn’t anywhere near a proper final build, but it does work well enough that I felt comfortable using it to compose this piece. It’s good enough for most web work that doesn’t involve using Flash (which is almost all of it, in my case, I’m realizing).

The software is still prone to crashes, but the nice thing about Chrome crashes is that they stay isolated. Firefox still crashes on me with fairly alarming frequency (I’m using the latest stable build, not the beta preview), and when it does, it takes all 15 of my open tabs with it. Yes, “Restore previous session” generally eliminates any cause for concern, but I still find it irksome.

Chrome also feels just as speedy as its Windows counterpart (see Sam’s post “Latest Google Chrome Release Is a Speed Demon“), which is to say, it feels very fast indeed — faster than Firefox, and faster even than Safari, the latest build of which received acclaim for its speed benchmarks.

Some basics are still lacking, like the ability to print pages, and an easy way to fullscreen your browser window, but rather than hindering my workflow, these limitations are mostly just serving to illustrate how little I take advantage of most of these features on a daily basis.

A couple of crucial components still lacking in the test build are security and privacy filters, so if you are going to start using Chrome as part of your workflow, make sure to do so with that in mind. It’s probably to keep sensitive tasks and data relegated to the latest stable builds of Firefox, Safari and Opera. For more details and to download the new build, check out the official Chromium blog.

Have you installed Chrome for Mac? Let us know how you’re getting on in the comments.

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The Mac developer release is available to download here, while the Linux version is available here (requires Ubuntu 8.04 or Debian 5 or later. You’ll need to select the correct build depending on whether you have a 32- or 64-bit system).

Let us know what you think of Chrome for Mac/Linux in the comments.

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