Essential Browsing Shortcuts

If you frequently surf the internet, there a few keyboard shortcuts that will help you move into the power-user category. The following shortcuts will work in all browsers on all operating systems.

The first and most important is Backspace. Assuming that you are not in a text area or form field, this will function the same as the back arrow. This is very handy when going through a list of links rapidly — typically hunting for a specific piece of content.

Refresh is one of the more common actions required. Instead of placing your hand on the mouse just hit F5 to refresh the page. If you are an advanced user and you would like to clear the cache while refreshing just add the Ctrl key to the mix (Ctrl + F5).

For the sake of speed, F6 will be one of your new favorites. This shortcut highlights the URL box in the browser and allows you to start typing a new URL immediately. This is particularly helpful if your hitting several website looking for updating content or designs.

For tabbed browsers, Ctrl + T will open a new tab… and in most cases highlight the URL bar. This is handy for rapidly opening a series of tabs and websites. This is typically how I start my day.

Last but not least are our old friends Page Up and Page Down. This is the best way to scroll quickly through content. This is a flashback to the days of word processing, but is very effective.