The 5 Most Useful Firefox Shortcuts
Posted by Jon Lee in Efficiency, tags: Efficiency, firefox, keyboard, shortcuts, top-list
Although Safari has broken onto the Windows platform, it is still no match for Firefox in terms of features and security. In order to further increase productivity and efficiency in Firefox, here are (in my opinion) the five most useful Firefox keyboard shortcuts.
New Tab (Ctrl-T)
Self explanatory. Should be noted that the location bar smartly takes focus.
Close Tab (Ctrl-W or Ctrl-F4)
Instead of positioning your mouse over that little red X on the tab, Ctrl-W does the trick. Ctrl-F4 works too but it isn’t as easy to press.
Undo Close Tab (Ctrl-Shift-T)
Accidentally closed that very important tab you had opened? Quickly bring it back with this little known but very handy shortcut. Right-clicking on the tab bar->Undo Close Tab will do the same thing.
Select Location Bar (Alt-D or Ctrl-L)
Quickly type in a new address. Upon selection, the entire location bar field is highlighted.
Select Search Bar (Ctrl-K)
Much like selecting the location bar, the entire field is highlighted so you can quickly perform a search. (Ctrl-J for Linux users)
You like these shortcuts? Then check out this previous post about keyboard shortcuts.
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There’s a neat Firefox extension, asdf-jkl, that will show you the keyboard shortcut for any button upon hovering over it. It’s nice for a little while as you learn the shortcuts, but it does get annoying after you know them well enough.
I knew about CTRL-T, but these other four are new to me. Thanks Jon!
I must concur with Michael Kwan. I was looking for a shortcut to close tabs, because it was irritating to click every time
Thanks Jon
Cool updated on keyboard shortcuts. Thanks
[...] Lee put up a post highlighting the five most useful Firefox shortcuts. I already knew about using CTRL+T to open up a new tab, but the close tab and undo close tab [...]
This is great, I have an older computer and if I check out someone’s blog page that has an excessive amount of java based widgets, the red X won’t work to close the tab. Until now, I’ve been forced to use the right click menu. Hopefully CNTL+W will get me out of these situations.
I didn’t know most of these shortcuts — its been really helpful, thank you.
i really love how you have an “efficiency” category. i’m ALL about efficiency…seriously… if i know i can do something in 60% of the time that it would normally take, i’ll go even further and shoot for 55%
Great for beginners… I’ll have to install this for some of my friends.
I sometimes close the wrong tabs on my older computer because it lags so much!
I’d shoot for 54%!
How about 50%
I’ve one more for quick search and it’s – “/”
Just press slash and type what you want to find on the page. You can also set this from settings, but I think this is much easier. So you don’t invoke the search accidentally.
Nice find! I’ve been using Ctrl-F.
/ is very natural for me since a lot of programs uses it to search text.
How about 45%? With these two…
Ctrl + Tab – To go to next tab. I guess this is common.
Ctrl + Shift + Tab – To go back to previous tab.
I have written a post some time back on WinKey shortcuts in webgk blog. I like to use shortcuts.
Thanks Jon, it’s a great post.
Hello webgk.com, the link provided by you seems to be not working. It’s bringing back to the same page, strange! I can see it in the status bar though.
I think this is where the actual post is… http://blog.webgk.com/2007/09/windows-key-winkey-keyboard-shortcuts.html
Thanks, that’s a great post.
Wow !
what a nice post delivering good info on shortcut keys.Now the mouse can take some rest.Kidding