Open Links on a Webpage by Typing – No Mouse Required

While you are inside Google Chrome, type the text of any link and hit the Enter key to open that link without ever using the mouse again.


Power users and keyboard ninjas who absolutely hate it when they have to take their hands off the keyboard should try Dead Mouse. This is a new Google Chrome extension that lets you click and open any link on a web page by typing a few characters that are in the anchor text of the link.

Once you have installed the extension from the Chrome Web store, type a few characters and the first matching link on the page will begin to wiggle (see the animation below). Hit the Enter key to follow that link or press Shift+Enter to open the target web page in a new tab.

If there are multiple hyperlinks on a page that match your typed text, you can easily cycle through the matching links by pressing the Tab key (or press Shift+Tab to cycle in reverse direction). And you can cancel the search mode by hitting the Escape key on your keyboard.

There are no settings to configure but the extension may not play nicely with websites like Twitter or Gmail as they have their own keyboard shortcuts.

Mouseless Browsing in Firefox

If you are on Firefox, you don’t really need any add-ons to open links from the keyboard. Press the “/” (slash) key and type the link text – the first matching link will be highlighted and you can press the Enter key to follow that link. [found via Hacker News]