Yes, it takes only 7 shortcuts, master them and you’ll defintiely be a lot faster. These 7 shortcuts are meant to make browsing and basic PC tasks easier. While couple of shortcuts are Firefox only, most should work pretty much on any browser.
Mouse Scroll Button
Anyone who spends a considerable amount of time on the web should find this shortcut absolutely invaluable. I am not sure about whether this works in IE 7, but if you use Firefox then you can use your mouse scroll button to open links in a new tab. It’s a finger-tip shortcut to the frequently used ‘right click -> Open Link in New Tab’ combination. Plus, since it’s at your finger tips it’s really easy to get used to it.
Quick Searches
There are two things that makes Firefox my favorite, one is tabs and the other is quick searches. I am surprised by the amount of people who still don’t know about it. If you haven’t tried it before you should definitely do so now.
Firefox’s Quick Search functionality allows you to set up one-click acess to searching your favorite websites. Whether it’s Wikipedia, IMDB, Youtube… whatever, by setting up a Quick Search for any of these websites you will be able to search it rite from the address bar.
How to:
Check out the video below, it sums up the whole idea quite well.
Open New Tab Window
Firefox only. Basically clicking on Ctrl+T opens a new blank tab. It’s also the easiest one to remember.
Using Google as unit converter
Need to convert USD to EUR ? Maybe miles to kilometers? Whatever the units are, you can instantly do it with Google. Just type-in your querry (”45 GBP in USD”, “31 miles in km”) as any other search term and search. Google will instantly convert entered units and show you the result.
OpenDNS
Keeping a long story short, this one lets you speed-up and secure your web connection. There is nothing to download or install, all you need to do is open your connection settings and change the DNS servers to the ones provided by OpenDNS. For step-by-step howto and video demo see OpenDNS review here.
Show Desktop Shortcut
‘Windows Button + D’ collpases all active windows to the Taskbar. If at any given time you need to get to some icon on your desktop, that is the fastest way to get there.
Copy, Paste and Cut
These 3 shortcuts are the holy grail of a speedy user. They are a absolute must-know and work pretty much anywhere.
Got another ground shattering shortcut ? Let us know in comments.
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Filed Under: Browser ¦ Cool Websites ¦ How-To ¦ Lists of tools ¦ Windows
Tags: browser tips, firefox tips, mouse, productivity, safer browsing, shortcuts, speedup, windows tips
It’s been a while, I am really...
Wow! I am so glad I learned about the middle mouse button shortcut!
The Show Desktop shortcut mentioned may only apply to Vista, since for XP at least, the corresponding keystroke is ‘Windows + D’.
Sorry it was just a typo the above ‘Show Desktop’ shortcut is ‘Win+D’, both on Win. XP and Vista.
Ctrl+T also works for IE7 to open a new tab.
also the Show Desktop shortcut is Win+D
Fixed ! Thanks.
I will have to check out the open DNS. As far as the others they should be everyone’s SOP.
re: Quick Searches
Often you want a search on a new tab on some text phrase you’ve just read in another tab. The the Firefox add-on Drag De Go is much quicker than quick search. Just grab the text and drop it the direction you’ve designated for a specific search engine (right for Yahoo search, left for Google search…) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2918
The addon looks pretty good. Although I still prefer the manual approach, mainly because it’s memory-savy, Plus you;re much more flexible when the number of saved search destinations grow.
even windows+M woks for the show desktop thing
It does, but Windows+D is a bit better. It also allows you to uncollapse taskbar windows back to a previous state. Just try clicking it twice and you’ll see what I mean.
GREAT BUDDY That was really cool. I was looking for something like this.
Thanks a lot
Shift-Windows-M will restore windows minimised by Windows-M.
Just another way to skin the cat.
With Firefox, use extension SnapLink to open one or multiple active links by just one drag (you could one even 100 links –> new tabs in 1 sec)
These are some really useful tips (and I use almost all of them every day) but it still amazes me how many people, especially people that use a computer every single day, still have no idea about the shortcuts for cut, copy, and paste. People are really tied to the mouse and rarely if ever use the keyboard for anything but typing.
Any hint for us IBM-thinkpad users that don’t have the Windows-Key? How do I get the desktop?
CTRL+ESC > R-click > “Show the Desktop” > Too much work?
Seems like too much of work. So I am going with hofi here, get autohotkey.
Or you could use a tool like autohotkey (http://www.autohotkey.com).
You could for example use the following code:
^!d::Send #d
This would map Ctrl+Alt+D to Win+D, so you could show/hide the desktop that way.
Here are some of the shortcuts I use in Firefox:
Ctrl+L: Use this combination to jump directly to the address bar.
Ctrl+Enter: After typing then name of a website into the address bar, click Ctrl+Enter, and it will automatically fill in a ‘www’ before and a ‘.com’ after the word you typed. Clicking this in combination with Alt (Alt+Ctrl+Enter) will open up the page in a new tab. Very nifty.
Ctrl+K: This jump you to the Mozilla Firefox start page, which is basically a Google Search engine
Ctrl+Shift+T: I always accidentally close my tabs, and I use this to reopen that tab.
Ctrl+Shift+Delete: Delete your private data.
So thanks for Ctrl+Shift+T!! I need it soooo much!
(btw - Opera for this is simply Ctrl+Z, but I prefer FF)
And of course Ctr+Z is universal for Windows users to undo what has been done
And I like some of theese too:
Ctrl+F4 close tab
Ctrl+Tab swich between tabs (also Ctrl+Shift+Tab)
Alt+F4 close window
Alt+Tab swich between programms (very useful!)
But my best shortcuts are selfmade for Win+R
Like to open calculator - Win+R write in “cal”
only I can write shortcuts that I have made (for most used folders und stuff) So useful!! But sorry, I cant tell you how to do that - I forgot
“But sorry, I cant tell you how to do that - I forgot”
@ Verdican: Thanks a ton for ‘Ctrl+Shift+T’, I REALLY needed this one.
I know how to use and how to make new shortcuts, but forgot what to do at first, that I could do that.
But I could find it up if needed… (?)
Never mind… I find it anyway.
http://lifehacker.com/software/windows/cheap-windows-keyword-launcher-039890.php
Another way is to simply drop shortcuts in WINDOWS folder, but i dont like that way.
In Firefox, CTRL+K selects the browser search box. Then CTRL+UP/DOWN scrolls between search engines. CTRL+L selects the address bar.
These are shortcuts I would die without.
To add to using google for unit conversions, if yuo have the google toolbar, it can display answers to conversions and calculations in the auto suggest dropdown
I know it works for calculations, but not sure about other conversions. I tried to onvers some currency units and it didn’t work.
Lol! Thanks for the Win + D shortcut. Previously I’ve been using Win + M to minimize and Win + Shift + M to restore all open windows.
You just save me one shortcut less to remember.
The mouse wheel trick works in Opera too. It’s very cool.
A warning on OpenDNS though: some ISPs, for example VirginMedia in the UK, run a DNS proxy, so they intercept any DNS requests you make to external DNS servers and give you the results using their own DNS servers. It’s not entirely clear why - the worry is that they may be logging the data to build up browsing patterns …
Thanks for sharing. But isn’t it illegal?
Another nice combo I use in Firefox all the time is CTRL-click, which opens a link in a new tab (no need for a blank tab, is there?).
IBM laptop users can remap the capslock key to be a Windows key (seriously - when was the last time you used capslock for anything?).
Other nice shortcuts are Windows Pause (brings up the system properties, much faster than right-clicking My Computer, and selecting Properties), and Windows L (lock workstation, which comes in handy if you have coworker who enjoy sending silly emails to your department if you walk away from your unlocked workstation).
Finally, a useless (for most of us) shortcut. Windows-Shift-PrtScn, and then hit Enter to answer Yes to the High-Contrast (white on black) display. A nice way to mess with a coworker’s machine in 2 seconds. Repeat the keystrokes to put it back the way it was.
Oh, and in Vista, Windows-Tab does the groovy Aero “Wow-factor” window switcher…
I tried ‘Windows-Shift-PrtScn’ on Vista but it didn’t work. Are you on Vista?
Oh, and if your mouse has a “thumb” button, that’s usually mapped to be “Back” (same as backspace in a browser), which is great for browsing, but if you don’t have one of those buttons on your “normal” mouse, you can remap the wheel “click” function to be a back key.
And I think the high-contrast tip I gave earlier might be ALT-Shift-PrtScn, but I can’t test it right now, ’cause I’m running Ubuntu on this laptop.
Yeap ‘ALT-Shift-PrtScn’ works … Neat trick
Not sure if this is Vista only but, depending on the arrangement of your quick launch bar, you can press Windows+Number to launch that program. For example, IE is in the second slot on my quick launch bar and when I press Windows+2 a new IE opens up.
Wow, that’s really nice. Just tested it on Vista and works like a charm
try WIN + L to lock your pc
Yay! I “passed this test” with 6 out of 7 points, didn’t know about the Open DNS one. Thanks Aibek!
My pleasure
Ctrl+L takes you straight to the address bar.
What effect does the “Open DNS” trick have on my current ISP? It seems so easy and effective that it must be a violation of some existing agreement.
Thank you for the shortcuts!