Each computer program is designed to be used with both a mouse and keyboard. Even the Windows system has many keyboard shortcuts and even on Office programs the key combinations make work easier and faster.After all, it is tiring to keep typing the address of a website every time you want to visit it or go to Google and search for the site you want to browse. Of course, you can use the auto-completion technology found in all modern browsers or the collection of favorite sites, but with keyboard shortcuts it is done much earlier and you are never wrong.
In this guide, we will show you how create custom shortcuts, can be used to browse the internet faster and immediately access the content we like without necessarily going through a search engine.
READ ALSO -> Use the CTRL and SHIFT keys to navigate faster on each browser
Main keyboard shortcuts
Su Chrome, Firefox e Edge we find comfortable shortcuts for browser commandsThe full list of supported key combinations can be found in the following list:
The main shortcuts that should be remembered on all browsers are:
- On Chrome and Firefox and Edge we can press CTRL-L to send the cursor to the address bar and start typing a URL or search.
- To immediately start the search engine in the address bar we can press on CTRL-K, so as to disable auto-completion and make no mistake
- To search for a specific word within a site just press CTRL-F, to open the search box.
- Obviously, on Windows, with CTRL-C you make a copy of a word or portion of text selected and with CTRL-V paste into any text field.
Already by learning these commands we will be able to speed up our browsing on browsers, but to get the most we must learn to use the keyword shortcuts, one of the most interesting features of Chrome that we can also find on Edge and Firefox.
Shortcuts with keywords
The keywords of Firefox, Chrome and Edege, allow to open addresses and sites quickly, without having to remember them by heart and also carrying out targeted searches (for example by immediately searching for the word on Wikipedia without searching on the search engine). This is very useful for immediately opening the most visited sites, including those in the favorites list.
Google Chrome
In Chrome we can search on specific sites with custom shortcuts. Each site that has a search box is automatically saved in Chrome in the search engine section. To proceed, right-click on the Chrome bar, click on "Manage search engines"and scroll down the list to see all the new additions of sites that have already been visited.
For each of them we can specify a different keyword (the second column) that allows you to call up the specific search engine for that website; for example, for we can set nav or pom as keyword. To proceed, all we have to do is press on the three dots next to the chosen search engine, click on Modification and act on the Keyword text field.
La prossima volta che desideriamo cercare una guida qualcosa su direttamente dalla barra degli indirizzi di Chrome basterà digitare prima nav o pom, premere il tasto Tab and type the article to search without first entering the site (in our case the internal search engine will open with the word or phrase entered).
Always on Google Chrome, the same thing can be done by pressing the right mouse button on one of the favorites and clicking on Edit; the keyword is the name of the bookmark. In this case, however, the problem is that the names can be confused in Chrome so this trick is not very practical.
Luckily we can fix it using the Shortcuts extension for Chrome that allows specify keywords to call up chosen websites.
To use Shortcuts, just type the> key in the address bar and then enter the configuration to add new keyboard shortcuts. To recall the shortcuts you must write the> symbol on the bar at the top, press Tab or Space and write the keyword.
Mozilla Firefox
Su Mozilla Firefox we can start sites using short words, to be used later to quickly access the site without having to type the entire address and without having to click on the shortcut. For example, if we have added Pom-heyWEB to our favorites, to add a keyword, right-click on the bookmark and open the properties window.
Nella casella della parola chiave scriviamo la parola chiave che vogliamo usare come scorciatoia (per esempio pom), così da poter aprire velocemente. Ogni volta che si vuole aprire questo sito, per cercare una guida o un'informazione, basta digitare sulla barra degli indirizzi la parola pom per aprire Pom-heyWEB. Per ogni sito si può quindi specificare una qualsiasi scorciatoia da tastiera.
Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 is based on Chromium, so it shares most of the features with Google Chrome even if the interface is slightly different.
In order to customize the browser's search engines, open the menu at the top right, click on Settings and use the Search bar in the settings to search Search engine, so you can click on Address bar and search -> Manage search engines.
The screen that opens is very similar to the one already seen on Google Chrome: the sites that provide a search engine will already be present in the screen and we can add others by pressing the button Add.
After having found the search engine of the site we are configuring, press on the three dots positioned next to it, click on Modification and choose the keyword in the specific field to quickly recall it in the address bar.
Conclusions
The methods described above can be really useful to speed up browsing the internet with quick shortcuts, without relying on the collection of favorites anymore. Keywords are really very useful, but classic shortcuts will also make a difference, especially when paired with specific sites.
On other browsers, searching on websites from the address bar is less convenient but still possible change the default search engine of the web browser address bar.
To become good at using the PC with the keyboard we can also learn the main key combinations and shortcuts for Windows and of hot keys for all browsers.
