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Comment by AngeloAnolin | Hacker News Reader

One reason I use Chrome as a developer is because of the vast debugging tools available with it (i.e. React has React Dev Tools, AngularJS has Batarang, NG-Inspector etc..)

But I generally use all major browsers, IE included when doing actual application testing.

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The fact that a lof of tooling is only available for Chrome is another side effect of the monoculture among developers. I too use Chrome for developing every now and then, but I use Firefox as my main browser for everything else.

I don't think that's the monoculture of developers.

Chrome was based in Webkit in it's rising years - which put it on par with Safari and Android. This meant that you could develop comfortably and do less cross-browser work up front.

Developers got comfortable. Chrome is open source, extendable, and keeps up with web standards.

> Chrome is open source

No, Chromium is open source. Chrome != Chromium. There's still some secret sauce being thrown into chrome that you don't have access to.

> extendable

Only with JavaScript. It bugs me a bit to this day that this is deemed to be sufficient by Firefox as well. We've lost quite a few good extensions with this change.

> web standards

It helps that Google's team pushes most of those web standards, meaning that everyone else is typically playing catch up.

The stock debugging tools are great too. As Ballmer would say, "Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. ...... Developers. Developers. Developers!"

As Firefox moves to WebExtensions all these debugging tools should become just as available. Currently it is difficult for extension authors to support Firefox as well but that is changing.

React DevTools is about to convert. Redux already has a working WebExtension. We are working with Angular Augury right now. VueJS should also be coming to Firefox soon.

I'm making a list and checking it twice: https://twitter.com/clarkbw/status/870609788366934016

Ironically, Google's Polymer does not need a special extension for dev tools (because custom elements are normal DOM elements with normal attributes and properties) :)

I can't say for the other frameworks, but React Dev Tools works great in Firefox!

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