One of the biggest aspects that made Firefox such a popular browser for users was the plethora of plugins that is available to enhance the browser. From utilities to make repetitive tasks easier to some of the most advanced web development tools that has changed the life’s of web developers the world over. When Chrome was released, the amazing speed and small footprint of the browser had people switching over to Chrome in spades. One thing the browser did lack though, was a plugin architecture so, for this reason, many developers still stuck with Firefox as their primary browser when developing and testing web application.

That all changed when Chrome announced the availability of Chrome extensions. And with the dead simple API to write, package and deploy your extensions, everyone is getting on the bus and users everywhere reaping the benefits. Below is a list of the 27 extensions, in no particular order, I currently have installed and find absolutely indispensable.

1. Aviary Screen Capture

This quick screen capture addon is a must-have for bloggers and designers alike! It will perform a screen capture of the visible portion of any webpage and then open the capture INSTANTLY in a basic image editor where you can do markup (draw arrows and rectangles), edit (crop, rotate and resize) and get the exact pixel colors of the image. A perfect companion tool for designers and bloggers!

2. Bit.ly Shortener for Chrome

Use the bit.ly sidebar to shorten your URLs, and send them straight to services like Twitter. Sign in with your bit.ly account, and gain the ability to track your clicks to your links. I am really surprised at the reasonably small number of users that use this extension. Although not developed by Bit.ly themselves, you will never know it. Give it a try, I am sure you will love it.

3. Chrome SEO

The Google Chrome SEO Extension provides easy access to Search Engine Optimization Tools that can help you with Competitive Analysis, Keyword Research, Backlink Checks, PageRank Checks and other daily SEO tasks. Some of the features include, a keyword research tool, highlight NoFollow links, the number of pages indexed, the number of backlinks, current traffic, rankings and much more.

4. Chrome Sniffer

This extension will help web developers to inspect web framework/CMS and javascript libraries running on the current browsing website. An icon will appear on the address bar indicating the detected framework or library. Currently, this extension can detect up to 50 popular CMS and javascript libraries, and more will be added in future releases.

5. chromeTopLink

An simple extension that dynamically adds a jump to top link to every page you visit. Simply install and forget. This is basically a conversion of the jQuery TopLink plugin created by David Walsh into a Chrome extension. So the kudos goes to him ;)  (http://davidwalsh.name/jquery-top-link)

6. CSSViewer

A simple CSS property viewer for designers and web developers based on firefox add on : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2104. CSSViewer shows the css parameters of any element in a web page, to enable/disable it simply click the toolbar icon.

7. Dictionary Lookup

This extension that allows you to quickly look up definitions of words and phrases in a clean inline box. The definitions come from Wiktionary, but have been preprocessed to reduce formatting and provide faster lookup. Hold Ctrl and double-click or select any word to look it up – an inline box will open to the dictionary entry of that word, usually including examples, audio pronunciation and synonyms. You can also lookup manually-entered queries using a shortcut which displays a small query form.

8. Feedly

A magazine-like startpage. A fast and stylish way to read and share the content of your favorite sites and services. Provides seamless integration with Google Reader, Twitter, Delicious, YouTube and Amazon. The description does not really do this extension justice. If you only install one extension, install Feedly.

9. Firebug Lite for Google Chrome

Firebug Lite is not a substitute for Firebug, or Chrome Developer Tools. It is a tool to be used in conjunction with these tools. Firebug Lite provides the rich visual representation we are used to see in Firebug when it comes to HTML elements, DOM elements, and Box Model shading. It provides also some cool features like inspecting HTML elemements with your mouse, and live editing CSS properties.

10. goo.gl URL Shortener

goo.gl url shortener is an extension which allows you to shorten the current website URL with the new Google URL Shortener service http://goo.gl/. Once compressed the url is automatically copied to clipboard and you can share it with Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, Delicious, Digg, MySpace, Google Reader, Gmail or your default mail client. There is also the possibility to create custom keyboard shorcuts for shortening the url and copy to clipboard or share with any of supported services.

11. IRC to Mibbit

Mibbit is an online chat client. Mibbit supports a variety of Platforms including the main PC browsers, the Wii, Nokia N800, iPhone, and probably a lot more. It does this without any plugins. Just javascript. Mibbit currently supports IRC and Twitter. This plugin makes it possible to make Mibbit the default IRC client in Google Chrome by replacing IRC URI’s (irc:// and ircs://) within a webpage. You are also able to type a IRC url right into a inputbox which appears when clicking on the frog icon to start chatting on Mibbit right away!

12. jQuery Docs

Simple extension that allows you to search and browse the jQuery docs without leaving your current working tab.The extension now searches the new api.jquery.com. Besides showing the arguments as well as description, the code examples are now also shown.

13. JSONView for Chrome

Unofficial JSONView port for chrome. http://benhollis.net/software/jsonview/ (original firefox extension). You can configure JSON parsing method in options screen : The default method (JSON content is extracted from displayed page) is faster but can (in some rare cases) alter or fail to parse the JSON content. The safe method cost an extra XMLHttpRequest (JSON content is extracted from the HTTP response) but is less error-prone.

14. Lorem Ipsum Generator

Chrome Extension that generates random “Lorem Ipsum” text. Many other extensions of this type – in other browsers – simply complicate this task, using really extensive code, XHR, etc. The main purpose of this one, is to use the least amount of code (and also memory) and help the developer/user to get the job done.

15. MultiSwitch

Whenever you have the need to simply switch between development, test and productive hosts you should use MultiSwitch. You are now able to customize the title of your environment. In this latest version the ip:port bug is also fixed. MultiSwitch is available in English and German (depending on your default Chrome language)

16. Pendule

Extended web developer tools for Chrome. Use this extension in addition to the built-in Developer Tools. Some of the features:

Style Sheets

• View styles – displays linked and embedded style sheets of the current page in a new tab.
• Reload CSS – reloads the style sheets for the current page on the fly, so you don’t have to reload the whole page for each change.
• Disable CSS – disables CSS for the current page.

JavaScript

• View scripts – displays linked and embedded scripts of the current page in a new tab.

Forms

• Show passwords – shows the contents of password fields.
• Convert GETs to POSTs – converts form methods from GET to POST.
• Convert POSTs to GETs – converts form methods from POST to GET.

Images

• Hide images – hides all images for the current page.
• Show alt text – shows images alternative text for the current page.
• Show dimensions – shows images dimensions for the current page.

Miscellaneous

• View selection source – shows selection source in a new tab.
• View generated source – shows generated source in a new tab.
• Color picker – shows the color picker in the current tab. Click on the screen to grab a color in RGB and hexadecimal formats.
• Display ruler – displays a ruler in the current tab. Select any part of the web page to measure the area within the box that you draw.

17. Proxy Switchy!

Proxy Switchy! is an advanced proxy manager for Google Chrome, it allows users to manage and switch between multiple proxy profiles quickly and easily.

Some Features Include:

• Manage and switch between multiple proxy profiles.
• Change the proxy configuration of Chrome and IE in one click.
• URL based switch rules.
• Supports Socks v4 and v5.
• Change LAN and VPN/Dial-up proxy settings.
• Quickly add rules for currently active websites.

18. Regular Expression Checker

Simple regular expression checker/tester. Some features include: Save regular expressions, provide a library of pre-built regular expressions, regex match status (how many matches, how many subpatterns, etc),  support for regex replacement, support for changing highlight color

19. Regular Expression Search

A simple search utility that allows you to search a web page using regular expression.

20. Resolution Test

Resolution Test changes the size of the browser window for developers to preview their websites in different screen resolutions. It includes a list of commonly used resolutions and the ability to customise that list. It also gives users the option to turn on Google Browser Size, more info on that here – http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/

21. RSS Subscription Extension (by Google)

This extension auto-detects RSS feeds on the page you are reading and upon finding one will display an RSS icon in the Omnibox, allowing you to click on it to preview the feed content and subscribe. The extension comes with 4 feed readers predefined (Google Reader, iGoogle, Bloglines and My Yahoo) but also allows you to add any web-based feed reader of your choice to the list.

22. SearchPreview for Google

The extension previously known as GooglePreview. SearchPreview adds preview images (thumbnails) to your Google search results. See a preview image of every search result before you click. The SearchPreview servers create and serve the preview images. Version 0.9 fixes an issue with the javascript heavy search version of Google and supports Google SSL.

23. Speed Tracer (by Google)

Speed Tracer is a tool to help you identify and fix performance problems in your web applications. It visualizes metrics that are taken from low level instrumentation points inside of the browser and analyzes them as your application runs. Speed Tracer is available as a Chrome extension and works on all platforms where extensions are currently supported (Windows and Linux). Using Speed Tracer you are able to get a better picture of where time is being spent in your application.

24. Web2PDFConverter

Convert any website to PDF document with this incredible Web to PDF online converter.

Extension features:

• Includes a direct link if the process is taking too long.
• Allows you to view the converted PDF using Google Docs.
• And of course you can download it to your computer.
• Easy Options section.

25. XML Tree

A benefit of XML is that it’s “human readable”. Egyptian hieroglyphics and EULAs are also “human readable”, but not necessarily human friendly. This extension is your friend.

What extensions did I miss? Which extensions are the one’s you cannot live without? Looking forward to reading everyone’s responses.