The Five Browser Shortcuts Everyone Should Know

Control-left click on a link to open in a new tab (Firefox and other Gecko-based browsers and also Konqueror). I think Opera uses shift-left click for this. Not sure about IE7 as I’m on Kubuntu tonight.

Control-T is highly useful, as is control-R (only IE and Konqueror use F5 for reloading the page, while CTRL+R is almost universal).

Thanks for the tips Dibble. Was wondering if there were Mac equivalents for any of those.

Hey Jeff
a most excellent post. 100% useful

“Have you set up a keyboard shortcut to launch your preferred web browser? If not, why not?”

Sounds like pre-mature optimization to me. I start a browser process less than once a day.

Very practical and useful entry. You think of everything. Just a quick addition: I think you mentioned in an earlier entry that you sometimes have even a hundred tabs open. CTRL - W is useful to quickly close a tab or a Window and a perfect corollary to your list.

boring.

Use Opera.

I do think most users will want to make use of the built in search box, though.

I’m sure they will. Many people like visual prompts. However, if you’re using a hotkey already (like CTRL-E), it’s a logical next step to get rid of the control entirely. After all, you’ve already begun to access the feature by a remembered method rather than clicking on it. Of course, it does take a slight motivation for the reduction of visual clutter.

If middle-click to open/close new tabs qualifies as an important shortcut, then so should ctrl_pgup/pgdn (to switch between tabs). Likewise, Ctrl+F4 (close tab alternative).

Less important would be ctrl+0-8, to select the first 9 tabs individually. ctrl+9 selects the last tab.

These are essential shortcuts for firefox, I’m not sure if IE or Opera have equivalents since I hardly touch them.

My all-time favourite Firefox shortcut:
Ctrl-Shift-T to reopen the last tab you closed (and it keeps a history too so you can reopen many closed tabs). It’s the “Ctrl-Z” of the tab world.

IE 7 doesn’t have this shortcut but you can download an add-in from here: http://www.muvextoe.com/manualolct.php

not all shortcuts work in every language. For example, Alt-D, Ctrl-E don’t work on a German IE

My favorite:
WINDOWS+R (shortcut for run) then http://www.mysite.com/ (fires up your default browser with whatever url you’ve inputed)… Nice “history” feature available… killer for cutpasted url :stuck_out_tongue:

"boring.

Use Opera."

Boring, use Firefox.

This could go on all day!

I just had to say that I use the side buttons on this mouse…
http://www.softwareandstuff.com/media/ACC10750_LG.jpg
…to navigate back and forward. Left is back, right is forward. I have grown so used to it, it is priceless.

Middle clicking to close also works on Visual Studio tabs

talking about using the middle mouse button,
clicking the middle mouse button anywhere on an open tab will close it. No need to hunt for the tiny close button.

On many laptops, or at least on ones with a synaptics touchpad, clicking the left and right buttons will emulate a middle click, which is nice if you’re at your laptop with no mouse to use.

If you use Firefox, the slash key ‘/’ to open the incremental search (quick find) text box. No more relying on Ctrl+F.

“I just had to say that I use the side buttons on this mouse…”

Yeah, i think you didn’t think to mention about the mouse back and forward buttons. Which i personally take for granted these days and i’m not even sure if they’re shortcuts anymore? Anyway, it pains me considerably to have to use a mouse without them.

I must second the comment about Mouse Gestures - they are also available in Firefox with the All-in-One Gestures add-on. It’s a bit like the scroll wheel on the mouse, once you get used to it you can’t live with out it, and now I keep trying to do mouse gestures in Visual Studio…

Konqueror (that’s a browser in KDE) keyboard shortcuts:
ctrl-l: focus address bar
typing in address bar results in navigating to that URL if you typed URL, or searches (by default with google), if it’s not URL. Firefox has the same behavior (except that it looks like that it goes to the first link if it is relevant enough).
ctrl-t: opens a tab
ctrl-w: closes a tab
ctrl-[ and ctrl-]: next and previous tab
ctrl-shift-d: duplicate tab
ctrl-d: duplicate window
ctrl-shift-b: move tab to new window
ctrl: enable access key (navigating through page elements with keys)
alt-left, alt-right: history
/: incremental search

Synaptics touchpad support under Linux/KDE (ksynaptics):
touching with two fingers simultaneously: middle button
touching with three fingers simultaneously: right button
move finger in circle: circular scroll (cw #8212; scroll down, ccw #8212; scroll up).