If you're like me, then your hands keep going back and forth between your keyboard and mouse when using a browser. Apart from being a waste of time, after some time of this, your hand begins to get tired. Luckily, Firefox has a whole host of built-in keyboard shortcuts that can make your surfing much more pleasing and efficient.

This article lists some of the more common shortcuts that will save your hand a few trips between the mouse and keyboard.
Mac users, substitute Command [Cmd] for Ctrl and Option for Alt, and most of these shortcuts will work just fine for you!

Page Navigation

  • Back - Backspace or Alt + <- (left arrow)
  • Forward - Shift + Backspace or Alt + -> (right arrow)
  • Reload page - Ctrl + R or F5
  • Stop [loading page] - Esc

Tabs and Windows

  • New Tab - Ctrl + T
  • New Window - Ctrl + N
  • Next Tab - Ctrl + Tab or Ctrl + Page Down
  • Previous Tab - Ctrl + Shift + Tab or Ctrl + Page Up
  • Select a Tab by Number - Ctrl + Number of Tab (1 for the first tab, 2 for the second tab, etc.)
  • Close Tab - Ctrl + W or Ctrl + F4

Other Common Shorcuts

  • Bookmarks - Ctrl + B
    • Add bookmark - Ctrl + D
    • Bookmark all open tabs - Ctrl + Shift + D
  • History - Ctrl + H
  • Homepage - Alt + Home
  • Downloads Window - Ctrl + J

Of course, the common cross-platform shortcuts for copying (Ctrl + C), selecting everything (Ctrl + A), printing (Ctrl + P), and most others also work in Firefox.

In part 2, I will explore several other useful shorcuts, as well as some of the lesser known ones.

All shorcuts listed here and many more others can be found in Mozilla's list of Firefox shorcuts.