Whether you’re a web designer, eCommerce manager, or simply someone who runs his own website, having the right tools at hand will have a huge impact on your efficiency; from maintenance and website management, to customization and design.

Here’s is a very selective list of free tools anyone who runs a website should have:

Web Browser

• Firefox

CSS debuggers

• Firebug- simply a must-have tool for working out CSS and Ajax/Javascript problems on your site.
• The Web Developer Extension is also a nice add-on to the Firefox browser.

PHP, HTML, CSS, and Text Editor

• Notepad++

Screenshot Tool

• Screen grab (Add-on for Firefox)

FTP tools

• WinSCP – a good Windows-based secure-FTP program
• FileZilla (Windows and Mac)
• FireFTP (Add-on for Firefox)

Note: Many people report that they have problems with corrupted uploads or incomplete uploads due to timeouts or other issues which can occur while using SmartFTP and CuteFTP. So I recommend against using those products. Usually WinSCP or FileZilla have no difficulties whatsoever.

File and folder comparison tools

• WinMerge (Windows) and TextWrangler (Mac)
• Beyond Compare (Windows) – this is the only tool in this list that is not free. I decided to include it anyway because it’s simply an essential tool and I personally use it every day.

File Archiver/Zip/Unzip tools

• 7-Zip
• IZArc

Related posts

• See also ZenCart’s useful tools list
• Web design explained