I tend to develop on my localhost using the exact same domain as my production site. Some people think it’s crazy, but I think it’s awesome. Why do I do this? Because it’s easier than having to change database values and content asset links whenever I import a database dump into my local environment.
Uploads by Proxy is a plugin that allows you to sync the uploads from a remote site to a local site. This makes it easy to test locally without broken upload links throughout your installation. Pretty nifty.
Hat tip to @bradt