Top 10 Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts
This installment of my (ir)regular Top 10 series focuses on getting the most out of your Internet browsing… specifically Mozilla’s Firefox browser.
There are a lot of shortcuts available in Firefox, but the list that follows is what I consider to be the most invaluable shortcuts and ones that any user of Firefox should know at the very least. These are listed in no particular order, and I’m sure you have others, so by all means, leave your comments below as all hints and tips are useful 
1: Automatically Complete .org and .net Addresses
OK, we all know that if we type a word in the address bar and press Ctrl+Enter it fills in the www. and the .com bits for you, but what about th increasingly popular .org and .net addresses?
In Firefox, Shift+Enter takes you to .net and Ctrl+Shift+Enter takes you to .org addresses automatically. So, if you want to go to Wikipedia, for example, type wikipedia in the Firefox address bar and press the Ctrl+Shift+Enter keys together.
2: Address Bar Focus
Following on from tip 1, you can set the focus on the address bar of Firefox by pressing the Alt+D keys together or the F6 key whichever you are most comfortable with.
3: Tabs
A terrrific aid to browsing which was ‘copied’ by Microsoft when they launched IE7. Pressing Ctrl+T opens a new tab and Ctrl+Shift+T reopens the last closed tab. This comes quite handy in case you accidently close a tab. The ‘long way’ to do this would be to go to History -> Recently closed tabs.
4: Open History in New Tab
Imagine this… you want to go to Youtube so you start typing ‘you…’ in the address bar. As you’ve been there a few times before, it shows you a list of previously typed URLs with the letters ‘y’, ‘o’ and ‘u’ in them in that order.
Now, using the down arrow key to highlight the selection (www.youtube.com in our case), press Alt+Enter and it opens in a new tab leavingyou to carry on reading the page you are on!
5: Delete Typed History
The next tip can be used as an ‘opposite’ to the above tip. For example, in the graphic below, when I type an ‘a’ in a formfield I get 3 entries. If I want to delete the 2nd entry from this auto-complete history, I press the down arrow key twice, until the entry I want is highlited, and press the Delete key. Simple,isn’t it. The same can be done with typed URLs in the address bar
6: Navigate Between Tabs
Quick and simple this one… the title explains it all. Pressing Ctrl+Tab helps you to navigate between different Firefox tabs easily.
7: Navigate Between Tabs [Advanced]
As mentioned above, Ctrl+Tab helps you navigate through the tabs in order they appear, but if you are a heavy tab user and want to go to a specific tab then just use Ctrl+corresponding tab number. For example:To go to the 3rd tab use Ctrl+3.
8: Scrolling the Page
Another quick and easy tip! The Spacebar or PageDown key scrolls down the webpage you’re on and Shift+Spacebar or PageUp scrolls up the webpage you’re on. Nothing more nothing less.
9: Open Link in New Tab
Ok, I have to admit, this is not a keyboard shortcut, but it is an excellent shortcut, nonetheless. Move the mouse pointer to a link on a webpage (or in the bookmarks list or in the Google search bar) and click the middle (scroll) button on the mouse. Voila, it opens the page in a new tab!
10: Open a New Browser Window
Yes, I know there are tabs, and I use them a lot, but I also know some people would rather open a new window, instead of a tab, so for those people, the shortcut is Ctrl+N.
I hope these shortcuts will enhance your browsing when using Firefox. Let me know if I missed some ‘good ones’, won’t you?
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