No Mouse Required: How To Use Firefox Like a Champion

Let’s face it - a good chunk of humanity is now using the Firefox web browser. Based on a quick look at the access logs for this site, that includes roughly 2/3 of the readers here (yay!). As with many open source projects, it was written with the power user in mind (which means a whole slew of keyboard shortcuts).

Today, we’ll be covering a small handful of keyboard commands that perform (what I consider to be) the most basic browsing functions, so everybody will benefit (and you can bet I’ll be covering the more esoteric commands in a later post). They’re going to come fast and furious, so get your keyboards ready! (Note: these are for non-Mac OSes - if you’re running OSX, you can substitute the Command key for most instances of Ctrl).

Using and Controlling Tabs

  • Open a New Tab : Ctrl+T
  • Go to the Next Tab : Ctrl+TAB
  • Go to the Previous Tab: Ctrl+Shift+TAB
  • Close the current Tab: Ctrl+W

Within a Page

  • Find a Hyperlink: Type a single quote - ‘ (which will spawn the Quick Find area at the bottom) and start typing. It will show you the first match as you’re typing! To move to the next match, hit Ctrl+G
    • Hit Enter to open the Hyperlink in the current tab
    • Hit Ctrl+Enter to open the Hyperlink in a new tab
  • Find Text: Type / (which will also spawn the Quick Find area) and, again, start typing. The first match will again appear as you type, and you can hit Ctrl+G to find subsequent matches
  • Scroll Down one Page: Either hit Page Down or the Spacebar
  • Scroll Up one Page: Either hit Page Up or Shift+Spacebar

Browsing

  • Previous Page: Alt + Left Arrow or Backspace
  • Next Page: Alt + Right Arrow
  • Refresh the Current Page: Ctrl+R
  • Refresh the Current Page (and bypass local cache): Ctrl+Shift+R - this one is good if you want to get the latest and greatest from the server, like for eBay auctions or something.
  • Go to your Home Page: Alt+Home

Miscellaneous (and don’t be deceived, I probably use these more than any of those mentioned above)

  • Put the Cursor in the Address Bar: Ctrl+L
  • Put the Cursor in the Search Box: Ctrl+K
  • Increase the Size of the Text on the Page: Ctrl++ (hold Ctrl and hit +)
  • Decarese the Size of the Text on the Page: Ctrl+- (same, just hit -)

So that’s it for this edition of No Mouse Required. Hopefully somebody will find these useful, and please stay tuned for the next installment!

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February 1, 2007 | Filed Under No Mouse Required, Productivity 

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7 Responses to “No Mouse Required: How To Use Firefox Like a Champion”

  1. Robert on February 1st, 2007

    On Mac, you’ll need to use these for the tabs, since Cmd + Tab and Cmd + Shift + Tab bring up the OS’s application switcher:

    * Go to the Next Tab : Cmd + Option + Right Arrow
    * Go to the Previous Tab: Cmd + Option + Left Arrow

  2. Robert on February 1st, 2007

    Whoops, I forgot to also say that you can use Cmd 1, Cmd 2, Cmd 3, etc. for the first, second, third, etc. tabs. Cmd 9 always selects the rightmost tab. I think you can substitute Ctrl on the other platforms.

  3. Michael A. Vickers on February 2nd, 2007

    Here are a couple that I find immensely helpful:

    ctrl pageup = move to the tab immediately left of the current tab
    ctrl pagedown = move to the tab immediately right of the current tab

    I used ctrl tab and ctrl shift tab when I need to bounce back and forth between a couple sites, but I use the pageup/pagedown method more often when I need to jump to a specific tab (I tend to keep a lot of tabs open).

    Cheers,

    Michael

  4. Michael A. Vickers on February 2nd, 2007

    Here are a couple tab navigation shortcuts I find immensely useful:

    ctrl pageup = switch to tab immediately left of the currently selected tab
    ctrl pagedown = switch to tab immediately right of the currently selected tab

    I use the ctrl tab and ctrl shift tab when I need to bounce back and forth between a couple sites, but tend to use the above method most often as I can quickly get to the specific tab I want (I tend to have a lot of tabs open at once).

    Cheers,

    Michael

  5. The Drizzle on February 2nd, 2007

    When typing an address in the address bar, just type the name and hit Ctrl Enter and it will put in http://www. and .com and direct you to that site.

    for example:

    I type in something like “apple” in the address field, and hit Ctrl Enter (Cmd Enter on mac) it will automatically enclose it to read “http://www.apple.com” and direct you to the site.

    This also works in IE.

    I find it useful since when you use Ctrl L it highlights the entire text already in the box and my natural reaction is to just delete the whole thing.

  6. dsf on February 5th, 2007

    Mouse Gestures?

  7. mimi on March 21st, 2008

    I hit F6 to highlight the url line, type in apple and hit Enter. No need for cmd-enter or ctl-enter.

    Another good one is hold down Ctl-roll mouse wheel. Makes the text larger.

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