15 Essential Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts

Want to save energy when using Mozilla Firefox? If so, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with these helpful time-saving keyboard shortcuts. From quickly getting “Home” to switching between tabs with ease, there’s a little something for everyone on this list:

1. Alt+Home takes you back to your configured web home page.

2.  F5 refreshes the current page being viewed. If you want to ensure that the refreshed version isn’t pulled from cache, use Ctrl+F5 instead.

3. Ctrl+T opens a new blank tab.

4. To switch between open tabs, press Ctrl+(1 or 2 or 3 etc…), where the number pressed is the ordered number of the tab moving from left to right.

5. To switch to the next tab to the right, press Ctrl+Page Down. For the next tab to the left, press Ctrl+Page Up.

6. To move backwards through your surfing history, press the Backspace button.

7. To move forward, press Shift+Backspace.

8.  To increase the size of the text on the current page, press Ctrl+ + (in other words, hold down the Ctrl key and then press the + key). Press the + sign multiple times for larger text.
9. To decrease the size of the text on the current page, press Ctrl+ – (in other words, hold down the Ctrl key and then press the – key). Press the – sign multiple times for smaller text.

10. To navigate to the top of the current page, press the Home button.

11. To get to the bottom of the current page, press the End button.

12. To view a web page in Full-screen mode, press F11. Press F11 again to return to normal view.

13. To bookmark the current page, press Ctrl+D.

14. To clear all private data stored during your browsing session (including things like your surfing history) press Ctrl+Shift+Del.

15. To open the Firefox Downloads window, click Ctrl+J.

Author: Dan DiNicolo

Dan DiNicolo is a freelance author, consultant, trainer, and the managing editor of 2000Trainers.com. He is the author of the CCNA Study Guide found on this site, as well as many books including the PC Magazine titles Windows XP Security Solutions and Windows Vista Security Solutions. Click here to contact Dan.