The Firebug plugin for Firefox has made the world of frontend development remarkably smoother for many of us. In the case of Internet Explorer we can thankfully rely on DebugBar by Core Services. Though not nearly as robust as Firebug it does come very close and does indeed come in very handy.

First and foremost, I highly recommend installing Microsoft’s Script Debugger for Windows as you’ll need it in order for the JS console in Companion.JS to work properly. You may perform a Google search for ’scd10en.exe’ or download it directly from Microsoft.

You’ll want to install both DebugBar and its related JS debugger, Companion.JS.

After doing so, remember that both plug-ins are free for “private or educational use”. So be sure to register the plug-in accordingly after installation.

As an added bonus, you may also want to try out their IETester tool. It allows you to quickly test your page against the various IE rendering and Javascript engines. I have not used it too extensively but it does appear to be promising.