There are literally hundreds of Firefox Add-ons out there varying from your local forecast to a chat application. Some are pretty useless but for Web Designers out there, there are a few that, once you get to know them, you won’t know how you’ve managed to work without them.

Web Developer Toolbar

This one is probably by far the most popular and if you are a Web Designer and don’t have it installed yet, I’m wondering which rock you have been living under. With a slew of nice little tabs, you have quick access to automatically validate the site you are looking at, make sure all the links are valid, look and edit the CSS, block images, disable/enable Javascript and the list goes on.

Firebug

Created in early 2006, Firebug became a “must-have” Firefox Add-on very quickly in the Web Design industry mostly because it let’s you execute Javascript on the fly. I personally like it because it highlights the different sections of a site when you click on a section div like

<div id="header">…</div>

If you have a problem in there somewhere, it will show you the padding applied in a different color, etc… I must admit that it does take a little while to get the hang of everything in Firebug since there are so many facets to this little tool, but it is well worth the little learning curve.

IE View and Opera View

Whether you like it or not, support for IE is still a must so make it easy on yourself with the simple “right-click” of the mouse button. These 2 add-ons open the page in your IE or Opera browser.

HTML Validator

Even though you can automatically validate a site with the Web Developer Toolbar, the HTML Validator add-on is just a great little tool that is integrated in your View Source. If there are errors, they will show up in a box below with an understandable explanation and by clicking the error, it brings you directly to the erroneous line.

Screengrab

Need to send a screen shot of your work to a client? Or add it to your portfolio? Screengrab makes that task very easy. You can capture a whole page (even if you have to scroll down), only what’s visible or create a selection of what you wish to grab.

Yellowpipe Lynx Viewer

You’ve worked out all the kinks in the design; it looks awesome in IE6 and 7, Opera and Safari so you’re ready to launch it. But what about screen readers? Have you taken into consideration visual impaired users coming to your site? This Lynx Viewer add-on will help you make sure your site is accessible to all.

FireFTP

Like Firefox Add-ons, there are literally thousands of FTP clients out there but if you are looking for something simple and easy to use, FireFTP is a great choice. It’s in your browser, which you would have open anyways and it opens itself up in a new tab automatically.