You can improve your productivity when you are working on web browsers by using navigational shortcuts effectively. Using mouse every time might seem easy to you because you are used to using mouse since childhood. But if you learn some keyboard and mouse shortcuts, you would find it much faster and easier to surf or work on web browsers.
Let’s look at some of the important browser navigation shortcuts that can be used more often. Most of them are common to every browser. Every browser be it Google chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Windows Internet Explorer, or Opera, uses almost the same navigational shortcuts.
| Shortcut Keys | Description |
| 1. Alt+Home | Opens homepage of the browser |
| 2. Alt+Tab | If more than one window of browser is open, it toggles between them |
| 3. Alt+Left Arrow | Takes you to last page that you had opened |
| 4. Alt+Right Arrow | Takes you to forward page, if you had gone back anytime |
| 5. Esc | Stops the current page from loading |
| 6. Ctrl+ (- or +) | Zooms in or zooms out of page, + to Zoom in and – to zoom out |
| 7. Ctrl+1-8 | Control with any number between 1 to 8 takes you to the respective tab in the tab bar |
| 8. Ctrl+9 | Takes you to the last tab if multiple tabs are open |
| 9. Ctrl+0 | If you had changed zoom settings, it resets browser’s zoom to default |
| 10. F11 | Displays the current web site in full screen mode |
| 11. Ctrl+Shift+Del | Clears the private data such as forms, usernames etc. |
| 12. Ctrl+Shift+B | Shows and hides the bookmarks bar |
| 13. Ctrl+F | Opens the find bar so that you can search text on the current page |
| 14. Ctrl+O | Opens a file in the browser from your system |
| 15. Ctrl+Shift+O | Opens the Bookmark manager having list of bookmark pages |
| 16. Ctrl+H | Opens browser history in a new tab |
| 17. Ctrl+J | Displays the downloads window containing lists of downloaded files |
| 18. Ctrl+K | Places the cursor to the address bar so that you can begin typing |
| 19. Ctrl+N | Opens new browser window |
| 20. Ctrl+Shift+N | Opens a new window in private mode |
| 21. Ctrl+R or F5 | Refreshes the current page |
| 22. Ctrl+T | Opens a new tab |
| 23. Ctrl+U | You can view a web page’s source code |
| 24. Ctrl+W | Closes the tab which is currently open |
| 25. Ctrl+Shift+W | Closes the window which is currently open |
| 26. Ctrl+Shift+T | It reopens the last tap which you have closed. If you want to open more tabs than press it again till your desired tab is opened |
| 27. Ctrl+Tab | It opens each tab one by one from the first to the last tab |
| 28. Ctrl+Shift+Tab | It opens each tab one by one from the leftmost tab to the rightmost tab |
| 29. Ctrl+Left-click on a link | Opens a link in a new tab in the background |
| 30. Ctrl+Shift Left-click | Opens a link in a new tab and switches to that tab |
| 31. Spacebar | Scrolls down a page at a time |
| 32. Shift+Spacebar | Scrolls up a page at a time |
| 33. Home | Take you to top of page |
| 34. End | Take you to bottom of page |
If you learn these tricks and try them more frequently when you are working on web browser, then you can certainly increase your productivity. Imagine using mouse again and again every second to move the control to different locations of the web page. You can save these seconds that adds up to minutes if you are working for long time. Thus, these navigational shortcuts can help you a great deal.