20+ Must have tools for any Software Tester to make their job easier

I’ve been working as a tester for more than 6 six years. During this period quite a lot has changed in the common QA practices, and I’ve always tried to keep up with times. As I have quite a decent experience in various types of testing, from time to time my colleagues ask me of some advice concerning various tools that simplify performing their routine tasks. This finally brought me to the idea of writing this blog post.

So, I’ve decided to make a list of 20+ Must have tools for any Software Tester to make their job easier.  

Spread Sheet: The most important tool which could be used for Test planning, test case writing, Test analysis etc.

FreeMind - A brain storming tool which have better features for a detailed ideaation.

Jing /  Fastone Capture / Drop.lr  - Capture, Edit and upload Screenshots.

Screencast-o-matic -  This is a screen and webcam recorder, to record on-screen activity for short tutorials, visual presentations, and communicate with complex bugs while you demonstrate!

Measure It - A mozilla/chrome addon which could be used for the verification of pixel perfect designs. 

Texter - Writing test cases or defects , Text substitution app Texter saves you countless keystrokes by replacing abbreviations with commonly used phrases you define

Bubbl - Mind mapping tool , great for brainstorming / idea / sharing information

EtherPad / typewith.me - is an online document collaboration tool which works in real time. In other words, EtherPad has allowed multiple people to work on the same document at the same time over the Internet.

Log-Watch - creates a log file as it goes, reporting strange events and possibly errors that might not appear through the UI

PerlClip - This will generate text , text count and more

Rapid Reporter - Can be used for Session based testing / Exploratory testing

Color Cop - returns RGB values

WebWait - check the speed of your web application

Firebug - Xpaths and JavaScript errors!

Pingdom - Test your page load speeds The Full Page Test gives you a detailed visual report on the load time of each element (images, CSS, JavaScripts, RSS, Flash and frames/iframes). Objects included in javascript are ignored

GTMetrix:  GTmetrix gives you insight on how well your site loads and provides actionable recommendations on how to optimize it.

METS - Minimal Essential Test Strategy (METS) - These are Excel spreadsheets but help in planning and estimating tests.

Beyond Compare - Comparison tool

Sikuli - Sikuli is a visual technology to automate and test graphical user interfaces (GUI) using images (screenshots)

Paloma Print Perfect - STREAMDiff - Comparison of PDF docs

IcuTest - GUI Unit Testing for WPF - http://www.nxs-7.com/icu

LucidChart which is another Visio alternative which is web-based. It has real-time collaboration so lots of people can work simultaneously.

Dia (Visio alternative, helpful for drawing process flow diagrams, etc for test planning) - http://live.gnome.org/Dia

Test Data Generation - This is a really cool web script that you can use for free and even download the script for use on your own server.

Selenium IDE: We can use this tool to generate locators of web elements quickly and easily. This powerful Firefox extension is really helpful in test automation. You can use this tool also for finding and testing already generated locators, which you use in your automated tests, for checking XPath existence on the page, testing the work of Selenium methods with them.

Xenu’s link Sleuth: This is a great tool for checking links. It was named the fastest link-checking software by industry authorities. Apart from checking for broken links, the tool provides a much broader functionality, which is useful primarily for website optimization.

Feel free to add more tools that make your testing Smarter!