In this post I’ll list the tools I believe every developer should have on his/her machine to be super productive.
I will update this post from time to time to try stay with current needs and trends.

If you want to recommend other tools you use, feel free to leave a comment.

If you think you can write similar post for Linux developers you’re more than welcome to write a guest post in my Blog. Just ping me.

General productivity

Notepad2 – For editing text files – fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting.
7-Zip – Archive/Extract virtually any format includes zip, rar, and even ISO (image file).
Ditto – Saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time.

Chrome extensions

LastPass – As developers we have a lot of passwords for different sites/services. This will let you manage them all easily.
AdBlock –  Block all advertisements on all web pages. Makes surfing lighter and faster.
Vimium – The Hacker’s Browser. Provides keyboard-based navigation and control of the web.

By technology

.NET

Visual Studio – Of course, not need to explain(hopefully).
Resharper – Developer Productivity Tool for Microsoft Visual Studio. After you install it you won’t understand how you worked without it all this time.
LinqPAD – Let you run any .NET code block in a scratchpad that executes any expression instantly. Originally made to run LINQ queries against the DB instead writing SQL queries.
dotPeek – .NET Decompiler. Integrates perfectly with Visual Studio/Resharper.

Web Developers

WebStorm – The best IDE for client side web developers (Javascript).
Chrome – Great not only for surfing but for debugging.
Paint .NET – Cut, move, change … image and photo editing software.
Colorcop – multi-purpose color picker for web designers and programmers.