It is important to measure page speed by debugging a slow website.

All Chrome browsers have built-in tools to help troubleshoot why a page is slow and not performing as well as it could.

The advantage of Chrome and Firefox-based browsers is that they can be extended with tools that make troubleshooting sites quick and easy.

Chrome and Firefox support browser add-ons.

Firefox calls them add-ons and in the Chrome ecosystem they are called extensions.

Browser extensions and add-ons extend the functionality of browsers in a personalized way according to the user’s needs.

Why Use a Page Speed ​​Browser Extension

A browser-based debugger like Chrome Developer Tools is a collection of tools, like a toolbox.

If you only want one tool, you’re out of luck because the browser offers the whole collection at once.

This means that an editor must first learn to navigate all the different menus, tabs, and screens, many of which offer tools that aren’t necessarily the big picture you want.

And that’s why extensions are a valid alternative to using a browser’s built-in troubleshooting tools.

You can simply choose the exact tool you want and skip the learning curve so you get the measurements you really need when you need them.

Google Lighthouse extension for Chrome and Firefox

Lighthouse is a great tool for getting an easy-to-understand overview of webpage performance with the ability to drill down into diagnostic feedback and tips for making a webpage faster.

There is a standalone Google Lighthouse web page, but you need to copy the URL of the page you want data for and then access the Lighthouse tool.

With the Lighthouse extension, the full power of the tool is available at the click of a button.

All you have to do is click on the extension icon and then click on the blue Generate Report button.

The Lighthouse extension will create a new browser tab and generate the full Lighthouse report.

The new web page will display a waiting screen while Lighthouse generates the report.

The top of the Lighthouse page contains the numerical scores for the webpage.

And, if you scroll down, you can see detailed data that helps diagnose and troubleshoot issues.

All you have to do is follow the links for more information on what a problem is and suggestions on how to fix these issues.

Google has developed versions of Lighthouse for both Chromium and firefox.

Browser extension for page load time

The Page Load Time browser extension for Chrome and also for Firefox provides a very accurate page load metric because it uses the Navigation Timing API, which is described on the Mozilla developer page for Navigation Time API.

The browser extension has been installed over 100,000 times and has been rated 258 times.

Once installed, all you need to do is visit a page and watch the Page Load Time icon in the top right corner of the browser.

The icon automatically reports the time it took to download the web page.

Clicking the icon shows more details about a wide range of factors that tell a fuller story about why the page loaded as quickly or as slowly as it did.

As you can see in the illustration above, the Page Load Time Browser extension reveals an amazing amount of information organized in an easy-to-understand format.

The detailed report shows the delays caused by a redirect, the response time for DNS and the connection time.

The report also calculates the response time from the start of the webpage request and the time until completion.

There are precise metrics for when scripts are executed, content is loaded, and how long the page took to finally load.

It’s an amazing amount of information displayed in an easy to understand way.

here is the Page Load Time Extension for Chrome and Load Timer add-on for Firefox.

Performance Analyzer

the Performance-Analyzer Extension for Chrome Browser is like the page load time browser extension, but it goes deeper in what it covers.

It uses Resource, Navigation and User Timing APIs

This extension generates colorful pie charts to provide a visual representation of various metrics such as requests by domain and provides navigation timing API information in a handy waterfall chart that visualizes render time.

According to the description:

“Performance-Analyzer (aka Performance-Analyzer) helps analyze current page through Resource, Navigation and User Timing APIs – see requests by type, domain, load time, brands and more – instantly.”

Page size inspector

the Page Size Inspector extension for Chrome is particularly useful because it provides a snapshot of a variety of metrics, including the number of font requests and the uncompressed size of that download.

What sets this extension apart is the easy-to-understand interface as well as the byte size of the following webpage resources:

• HTML
• JS
• CSS
• Pictures
• Ajax
• Fonts

The Chrome browser extension also provides download times in seconds for a quick and convenient overview of page speed metrics right at your fingertips, right on the page.

Checkbot: SEO, web speed and security tester

This extension brings together several tools related to SEO.

What is interesting with this extension is that it provides data that can help to better understand why a web page takes so long to load.

The plugin reports on the following variables:

• File minification.
• Network compression information.
• File caching.
• CSS and JavaScript blocking rendering.
• Duplicate CSS and JavaScript.
• Excessive inline CSS and JavaScript.
• Chained redirects and redirects.

All of the above data points are extremely helpful in understanding possible issues that need to be addressed.

As a bonus, the Chrome Checkbot: SEO, web speed and security tester The extension also offers various SEO related data, and one of my favorites is the security headers data which can tell you if a site is insecure due to missing security headers. .

Page speed browser extensions

Page speed browser extensions are extremely useful for publishers and developers.

They can help you quickly identify issues in the moment without having to open another webpage and then paste a URL into another website.

Page speed diagnostics can be performed directly while you are on the site, automatically or at the click of a button.

More resources:

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