• From: Nijmegen, Holland
  • Registered: 2009-12-11
  • Posts: 230

Topic: Mouseless Browsing with Firefox and Chromium

Shortcuts In Firefox:

I did not leave much out, even some the most obvious like F11 but if I forgot some important one and you have some good suggestions, let me know.
(chromium) means that in Chromium the shortcut is the same.

Navigation Shortcuts

Forward, backward, home, address bar and search bar can be done via keyboard shortcuts:

alt+left arrow : back (chromium)

might not work in debian: solution use backspace key: if this also  won't work for you, make sure to set browser.backspace_action to 0 ( found in about:config iceweasel settings )

alt+right arrow : forward (chromium)

alt+Home : Home (chromium)

ctrl + or - : larger/smaller page layout  (chromium)

F11, toggle full screen  (chromium)

ctrl+n opens new window (chromium)

ctrl+f: opens search page dialogue F3=find again Shift+F3= find previous  (chromium)
ctrl+h toggle history sidebar (chromium)
ctrl+b toggle bookmark sidebar (chromium)
ctrl +F11 Stumble Upon toolbar
super alt c Next Stumble (configure in tools, toolbar options, shortcuts).

/ (slash) : find as you type text
' (apostrophe) find as you type link and focus it(enter to activate), use the two following in combination with these two
ctrl+enter: opens already focused link in new tab
shift+enter: opens already focused link in new window

arrow down/up: Select Next/Previous Form Entry or Auto-Complete Entry

ctrl+l or F6: focus address bar  (chromium)

ctrl+K : focus search bar

F4+arrow up/down +enter: only when search engine is focused: select from search engine list

Tab Shortcuts

Opening, closing and navigating your tabs can be done via these shortcuts:

ctrl+t : new tab (chromium)

ctrl+w : close tab (chromium)

ctrl+Page Up : previous tab (chromium)

ctrl+Page Down : next tab (chromium)

ctrl+tab : next tab (chromium)

alt+num (1, 2, 3, etc) : tab number (chromium)

ctrl+shift+T : open recently closed tabs (chromium)

ctrl+r : refresh tab content (chromium)

ctrl+shift+r : force-refresh tab content

ctrl+u : view tab source (chromium)

F7: toggle on/off caret browsing:(inserts a cursor into the text of the page and is very useful for highlighting and copying text)

More here:

http://www.accessfirefox.org/Firefox_La … rtcuts.php



Mouseless browsing takes keyboard control to a whole new level.
This site features two addons: the first is called Customize your Web and is a nifty Greasemonkey wysiwyg-editor addon for code dummies like me.

What is especially awesome, is how the developer manages to make page segments selectable and browsable with the keyboard. He shows how to focus elements of a search result page of Google with the keyboard. You can create extensive macro's of a couple of actions you perform regularly on a site and automate them with a keyboard shortcut. The downside of these great features is that each customization is limited and has to be tailored to a certain site. Of course when the build of a page is similar you can try if it works with the similar pages/websites.

Look at a  tutorial here.

It's amazing and a wonderful add on to customize your webbrowsing.


The second add on from this site is the simpler but very effective mouseless browsing addon:

Mouseless Browsing (MLB) is a Firefox-Extension which enables you to browse the internet with the keyboard. The basic principle is to add small boxes with unique ids behind every link and/or form element. You just have to type in the id and press enter (there is also an automatice mode available) to trigger the corresponding action i.e. following a link, pressing a button or selecting a textfield.


You will need only the numerical keyboard to do your browsing. This is my preferred set up: that you only use the numkeys for controlling this add on. But for a netbook there are other options.

You can toggle the visibility of the numerical id's. I set visibility out as default; visible by pressing a defined key; I chose to use the decimal key for this purpose.
The numerical id are quite unobtrusive to watch, compared to solutions I tried some years ago. Watch the two excellent videos to get a grip of the possibilities.
I use it most to select a certain tab, focus text fields and open links.

Last edited by pablokal (2010-06-26 15:22:59)

GNu/Linux: Nu nog schoner: http://linuxnogschoner.blogspot.com/  Dutch

pablokal's Website

  • From: Nijmegen, Holland
  • Registered: 2009-12-11
  • Posts: 230

Re: Mouseless Browsing with Firefox and Chromium

I tested the above short-cuts in Chromium and I'm glad to say that most but not all work in Chromium to.

I added this info in the first post: (chromium) means that in Chromium this shortcut is the same.

Last edited by pablokal (2010-06-26 15:26:10)

GNu/Linux: Nu nog schoner: http://linuxnogschoner.blogspot.com/  Dutch

pablokal's Website

  • tmth
  • New member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2010-07-29
  • Posts: 1

Re: Mouseless Browsing with Firefox and Chromium

Hey there.
I've tinkered with mouseless browsing options for maximum performance and non-intrusiveness, this is a layout I found to work pretty well with smart positioning disabled (speeds it up significantly). The ids get pretty cramped in some places, but the overall impact on page layout is minimal.

font-family:arial, monospace; font-size:xx-small; line-height:130%;
vertical-align:center; 
max-width:20px; max-height:10px;
overflow:visible;float:none;
opacity:0.5;
z-index:999;
position:absolute;

Unfortunately, gmail doesn't work with MB. There are no IDs for items in the mail list sad

  • From: Strasbourg, France
  • Registered: 2009-09-22
  • Posts: 73

Re: Mouseless Browsing with Firefox and Chromium

You could also try vimperator on Firefox which gives Firefox vim-like keyboard shortcuts.

Xmonad is the best way to get things done, fast.
My french linux blog: http://cbrunos.wordpress.com

cbrunos's Website

  • From: Nijmegen, Holland
  • Registered: 2009-12-11
  • Posts: 230

Re: Mouseless Browsing with Firefox and Chromium

tmth wrote:

Hey there.
I've tinkered with mouseless browsing options for maximum performance and non-intrusiveness, this is a layout I found to work pretty well with smart positioning disabled (speeds it up significantly). The ids get pretty cramped in some places, but the overall impact on page layout is minimal.

font-family:arial, monospace; font-size:xx-small; line-height:130%;
vertical-align:center; 
max-width:20px; max-height:10px;
overflow:visible;float:none;
opacity:0.5;
z-index:999;
position:absolute;

Unfortunately, gmail doesn't work with MB. There are no IDs for items in the mail list sad

Thanks for the suggestion!! Will try it out..

GNu/Linux: Nu nog schoner: http://linuxnogschoner.blogspot.com/  Dutch

pablokal's Website

  • barc
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-03-17
  • Posts: 19

Re: Mouseless Browsing with Firefox and Chromium

cbrunos wrote:

You could also try vimperator on Firefox which gives Firefox vim-like keyboard shortcuts.

Or vimium, if you use Chrome / Chromium, which does the same.

  • From: Sweden
  • Registered: 2010-06-01
  • Posts: 105

Re: Mouseless Browsing with Firefox and Chromium

barc wrote:
cbrunos wrote:

You could also try vimperator on Firefox which gives Firefox vim-like keyboard shortcuts.

Or vimium, if you use Chrome / Chromium, which does the same.

Better than Vimium is Vrome.

For Firefox also there is KeySnail that is Emacs like shortcuts.

Last edited by bastiano (2010-08-20 23:41:31)