You already spend enough time online, don’t you? Whether working on your site’s SEO, writing articles or blog posts, or the hundred other things on your list, time is of the essence.
Any real time saving tips should be pretty valuable. After all, isn’t a penny saved a penny earned?
So here are 20 amazing Firefox shortcuts to save you time and money. (If you don’t have Firefox installed, it’s free. I would appreciate if you follow the link in my footer.)
Got browsing tips of your own? Be sure to share them in the comments (and remember, now SEONoobs is using Lucia’s Link Love for “dofollow” and CommentLuv for automatic backlinks to your blog).
1. Search Sites With Keywords
Go to any site with a search field, right click search box and select “Add a Keyword for this Search”. The add bookmark box will open. Give it a name and short keyword (you might use “bay” for eBay as both the name and the keyword). Now, if you want to search for CDs on eBay you can now do so by typing “bay CDs” into the Firefox address bar.
2. Assign Keywords to Bookmarks
To speed up locating a bookmark, go to bookmarks/organize bookmarks, right click the link you want and select properties. Enter a short text string in the keyword field (For example, enter ‘coffee’ for your bookmark to this blog) and click “OK”. Then, to access the site simply type the text string (for example, ‘heath’) into the address bar and hit enter.
3. Navigate Tabs
Press “CTRL+TAB” to jump from tab to tab (left to right), or “CTRL+SHIFT+TAB” (right to left). When you get to the last tab it will jump back to the first. Alternatively, you can press “CTRL” and a number that corresponds with the tab you want. So, “CTRL+3″ will take you directly to the third tab.
4. Type Quicker URLs
Type the name (not the address) of a site you want to visit in the address bar and press “CTRL+ENTER”. This will add http://www. before the text and .com after it to automatically load that site. “SHIFT+ENTER” adds http://www. and .net, or “CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER” http://www. and .org. If you hold down ALT at the same time it will load the site in a new tab.
5. Quick Word Search
To search for any word or phrase you have found on a website, select and drag the text into the Firefox address bar. Alternatively, you can highlight the phrase and right-click it, and select search web for. If you set the search bar for Amazon or eBay you can use this method to quickly look up products. Add uk-specific sites to the search bar here.
6. Drop-Down Bookmarks
You can bookmark multiple open tabs in a single folder by going to “Bookmarks”, then “Bookmark All Tabs”. If you save this folder to the bookmarks toolbar, then hovering over the link will display all the Bookmarks in a drop down list (You can do the same with a folder created from existing bookmarks).
7. Delete Addresses
Click on the down arrow in the address bar and you will see a list of recently accessed sites. To remove a particular site from the list, highlight it then press “SHIFT+DELETE”.
8. Get Instant Downloads
Right-click the navigation toolbar (above the address bar) and select customize. This will bring up a box containing icons. Drag and drop the downloads icon to the toolbar. Now, whenever you want to download something from a web page simply highlight the link and drag it to this button and start your download.
9. Launch Multiple Homepages
Firefox can be set to open multiple pages (in individual tabs) when it starts up, or if you click the home icon. Load all the pages you want the browser to open, then go to tools/options and select use current pages.
10. Caret Browsing
Press “F7″ to toggle caret browsing on or off to give your mouse a rest. This places a cursor where you click, letting you select text from a website using your keyboard.
11. Save Audio and Video Clips
If you want to save a picture, a video, or an audio, clip but it’s protected, right-click the page you are viewing and select “View Page Info”. Click the “Media” tab, then find and highlight the file you want. Click “Save As”.
12. Quick Google Search
If Google is your default search engine, and you type a search query directly into the Firefox address bar and press enter, Firefox will perform an “I’m feeling lucky” search and take you straight to the first page found by Google.
13. Viewing Images
You can view any image or picture from a website in its own browser by right-clicking it and selecting “View Image”. Hold down “SHIFT” when you do this and the graphic will open in a new window. Hold down “CTRL” (or click the mouse wheel) and it will open in a new tab.
14. Speed Up Firefox
There are various ways to tweak a program to make it faster, but the easiest way is to use a program to do everything for you. Tweak your Firefox installation with FireTune or Fasterfox.
15. Make a Live Bookmark
Firefox utilizes RSS feeds to create live bookmarks which change dynamically and show the latest links and stories. You can create a live bookmark from any site with an RSS feed by clicking the orange icon that appears in its address bar.
16. Stop Animation
Some websites use animated GIF images. To stop a GIF file from moving, simply press “ESC”.
17. Open New Tabs
There are many ways to open a new tab. You can go to File/New Tab, press CTRL+T, click a link while holding down CTRL, or right-click a link and select “Open Link in New Tab”. You could also just drag a link straight to the tab bar
18. Close Tabs
You can close any tab by clicking on it with the mouse wheel. CTRL+F4 or CTRL+W will do the same thing, take your pick.
19. Customize Firefox
Type “about:config” in the address bar and hit “ENTER” to bring up Firefox’s internal configuration options. These be tweaked to change how the browser behaves. Find out more at mozillaZine.
20. Find Words and Links
Pressing the “/” key brings up the “Quick Find” box in Firefox (at the bottom left of the page). Enter a word or words into this box and it will search as you type. But if you press ” ‘ ” instead, it will open up the Quick Find box, but only search for keywords in links.
