Best Chrome Extensions to Test and Protect Website Security (2025 Tools for Ethical Hackers)

Are you an ethical hacker or security tester? Or do you work for an organization that wants to protect its website from online attacks?

Good news—you don’t always need big or expensive tools. You can start testing and protecting your website right inside your browser using Chrome extensions.

In this post, you’ll discover the best Chrome extensions in 2025 that help ethical hackers and IT professionals test vulnerabilities and protect websites from common attacks.

1. Wappalyzer – Find Out What a Website is Using

What it does:
Wappalyzer tells you what technologies a website is using. It can detect things like:

• Content Management Systems (e.g., WordPress, Joomla)

• Programming languages (e.g., PHP, Python)

• Web servers (e.g., Apache, Nginx)

• Frameworks (e.g., Bootstrap, Laravel)

• Tracking tools (e.g., Google Analytics)

Why it helps protect websites:
Knowing what technologies are in use helps you spot outdated or vulnerable software. This is the first step in reconnaissance, and it’s useful for ethical hacking, bug bounty, and system hardening.

2. HackTools – Built-in Ethical Hacking Tools

What it does:
HackTools is a browser-based toolbox for penetration testers. It gives you quick access to:

• XSS payloads

• SQL injection payloads

• Base64 encoding and decoding

• Reverse shell commands

• URL encoding/decoding

Why it helps protect websites:
It lets you safely test your own web applications for input-based attacks. You can check if a website properly filters user input, which helps prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection.

3. EditThisCookie – Full Control Over Cookies

What it does:
This extension allows you to view, edit, add, and delete browser cookies.

Useful for:

• Checking if secure flags are missing on cookies

• Testing session hijacking

• Modifying cookies to bypass login

• Studying session management behavior

Why it helps protect websites:
You can simulate cookie manipulation and session attacks to check if your website is vulnerable to things like session fixation or insecure authentication.

4. HTTP Headers – Analyze Server Headers

What it does:
This extension displays all the headers sent by a server when you visit a website. These include:

• Server type

• Content Security Policy (CSP)

• X-Frame-Options

• Strict-Transport-Security

• CORS headers

Why it helps protect websites:
Headers are the first line of defense for websites. With this extension, you can check if important security headers are missing or weak, and then fix them.

5. User-Agent Switcher – Test How Websites React to Different Devices

What it does:
This tool changes your browser's user-agent string to make it look like you are using a different browser or device (like an iPhone or a search bot).

Why it helps protect websites:
Sometimes attackers use fake user-agents to bypass filters. Ethical hackers can use this tool to test how a site reacts to bots, crawlers, or mobile devices. You can also test if different roles or device types are treated differently by your web app.

Final Thoughts

If you're serious about protecting your website and learning how ethical hackers test for weak points, these Chrome extensions are a great place to start.

Summary of Tools:

• Wappalyzer – Discover website technologies

• HackTools – Access common hacking payloads

• EditThisCookie – Test session and cookie handling

• HTTP Headers – Analyze server and browser headers

• User-Agent Switcher – Mimic different devices or bots

You don’t need to install every tool at once. Start with one or two, test your website, and slowly build your skill. These tools are free, light, and perfect for learning how to protect your site from real-world attacks.