Without a doubt, this is one of those topics that WordPress developers love to share, but for me it’s about more than simply spouting out a list of popular WordPress plugins, I really do love using these plugins because they make my life easier.

Akismet

This goes without saying, Matt Mullenweg did a brilliant job on this plugin and it’s become a staple that every WordPress blog should use. Link to Akismet

Frame Buster

This is a great plugin by Denis de Bernardy which basically stops sites like about.com from loading your content into their frames and keeping their banner at the top. Link to Frame Buster

Lightbox

A simple plugin both to install and to use, the Lightbox plugin by Peppe Argento uses Lightbox JS by Lokesh Dhakar to display image zooms on your site. Light Box

WordPress Mobile Edition

Alex King did a great job on this little plugin that makes your website more compatible with mobile devices. Mobile Edition

Thumbnail For Excerpts

For years I struggled with how to quickly add images to my excerpts but Radu Capan introduced a fantastic plugin that searches your posts and finds the first image. Thumbnails for Excerpts

Text Replace

Last but not least, I can’t say enough great things about Scott Reilly’s text replace plugin for WordPress. It searches your posts and replaces text with strings, so each time a specific phrase appears (such as WordPress) it automatically creates the hyperlinks for me. Text Replace