There’s no easier way to save time online then to learn keyboard shortcuts for the browser actions you do the most. Here are some of the most useful shortcuts for Safari and Firefox. I’ve assumed you’ve turned on tabbed browsing in Safari by going to Safari: Preferences, clicking on Tabs and choosing the Enable Tabbed Browsing option. (Tabbed browsing is on by default in Mozilla Firefox.) Some of the Safari shortcuts will react differently if you have not.
Speed Surfing
| Action | Apple Safari Shortcut | Mozilla Firefox Shortcut |
|---|---|---|
| Open a new window | ⌘-N | ⌘-N |
| Open a new tab | ⌘-T | ⌘-T |
| Open link in new window | ⌘-option-click | Shift-click |
| Open link in new background tab | ⌘-click ¹ | ⌘-Shift-click |
| Open link in new tab | ⌘-shift-click ¹ | ⌘-click |
| Stop loading page | ⌘-. or Esc | ⌘-. or Esc |
| Reload page | ⌘-R | ⌘-R or F5 |
| Go back one page | ⌘-[ or Delete or ⌘-Left arrow | ⌘-[ or Delete or ⌘-Left arrow |
| Go forward one page | ⌘-] or ⌘-Right arrow | ⌘-] or ⌘-Right arrow |
| Open Home page | ⌘-shift-H | option-Home |
| Select the Search field | ⌘-option-F | No shortcut |
| Find text in page | ⌘-F | ⌘-F |
| Select next tab | ⌘-shift-] or ⌘-shift-Right Arrow | Ctrl-Tab or ⌘-option-Right Arrow or Ctrl-Page Down |
| Select previous tab | ⌘-shift-[ or ⌘-shift-Left Arrow | Ctrl-shift-tab or ⌘-option-Left Arrow or Ctrl-Page Up |
| Add bookmark | ⌘-D | ⌘D |
| Show bookmarks | ⌘-option-B | ⌘B |
| Increase text size | ⌘-plus sign (+) | ⌘-plus sign (+) |
| Decrease text size | ⌘-minus sign (–) | ⌘-minus sign (–) |
| E-mail contents of the current page | ⌘-I ² | No shortcut |
| E-mail link to the current page | ⌘-shift-I | No shortcut |
| Scroll down one screen | Page Down or Space bar | Space bar |
| Scroll up one screen | Page Up or shift-Space bar | Shift-Space bar |
| Go to bottom of page | ⌘-Down Arrow | End |
| Go to top of page | ⌘-Up Arrow | Home |
| View Downloads window | ⌘-option-L | ⌘-J |
| View Activity window (Safari) | ⌘-option-A | No shortcut |
¹ These two shortcuts are reversed if you’ve gone to Safari: Preferences and selected the Select New Tabs As They Are Created option. ² This feature doesn’t work with Microsoft Entourage