What are the best web browsers or browser extensions allowing keyboard navigation?

Question

PCLinuxOSXWebWindowsProductivitySoftware

What are the best web browsers or browser extensions allowing keyboard navigation?

15

Options
Considered

78

User
Recs.

Jan 5, 2024

Last
Updated

12 Options Considered

Best web browsers or browser extensions allowing keyboard navigation	Price	License	Based On
-- Qutebrowser	free	OpenSource (GPL-3.0)	N/A
-- Vivaldi	-	BSD+Proprietary	Chromium
-- Vimium	free	-	-
-- cVim	-	-	-
-- Surfingkeys	-	-	-

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score 17 · Answer 1

Qutebrowser

Top Pro

Vim-style keyboard shortcuts and commands for rapid navigation

Top Con

Requires additional support and plugins for video playback

whatev whatev's Experience

Simple, easy to learn if you have already used vim and well maintained. I would recomend this to anyone who wants a keyboard based browser, although vimuim is also a great option if you want the speed of chromium or don't want to change browsers See More

Specs

License:OpenSource (GPL-3.0)

Based On:N/A

Browser Engine:Qt WebEngine (Blink)

Default Search Engine:DuckDuckGo

Top Pro

Easy integration with pass

See here and here. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve

If you're not a vim user it will take some time to get used to the shortcuts. See More

Top Pro

Vim-style scripting allows easy assignment to key strokes that can replace many plugins

Top Pro

Fast and light on resource usage

Top Pro

Configuration can easily be synchronized

Compared to Firefox the configuration files are clearly laid-out and can thus be easily synchronized with other instances. This encompassed open tabs which are saved in ./sessions/default.yml. No "ReadItLater" or "Pocket" or the like required, thus no cloud service required. Remember: The cloud is just someone else's computer. See More

Top Pro

Highly customizable

And quite easy to configure. You can even write your own config. See More

Top Pro

The "pop up" commands / history feature

Very useful especially for beginners who may not know shortcuts / commands. See More

Top Pro

Userscripts

Call custom scripts on web pages or links (hinting mode). You can use this for downloading of videos (youtube-dl, adfree), saving web pages as pdf or adding news sources to your RSS reader (newsboat). See More

Top Pro

Great for Privacy

Makes no unexpected network requests by default, unlike most other browsers (Chrome, Chromium, Brave, Firefox, etc). See More

See All

score 11 · Answer 2

Vivaldi

Top Con

Forced Bloat

Bundles-in way too many things, making the installer and installation unnecessarily huge. Those features would be more suited as additional dependent packages (similar to how Eclipse IDE manages extensions). See More

Top Pro

Mouse gestures

Integrated mouse gestures. Fully configurable as of Vivaldi 1.2 (snapshot available now). Allows for navigating the web, switching tabs, closing windows, opening settings etc. with a flick of the mouse. See More

Specs

License:BSD+Proprietary

Based On:Chromium

Browser Engine:Blink

Platforms:Windows; macOS; Linux; Android

Top Con

Most of it is proprietary

Top Pro

Provides keyboard navigation out-of-the-box

The feature is called Spatial Navigation. You don't even have to enable it in settings first. Spatial navigation allows you to navigate with the keyboard to any direction with your arrow keys. See More

Top Pro

Custom search engines

You can add as many search engines as you like. For example you can set up one for YouTube, one for Wikipedia, or whatever you want: you need only the URL of the search and it can be used from the URL bar (by prefixing it's nickname, yt for YouTube for example). See More

Top Pro

Web Panels

Web Panels allow for easy access to any site from the side panel. They are useful for reading two websites side by side or for chatting (i.e. Facebook) and surfing at the same time. Panels can be hidden when not in use. See More

Top Pro

Built-in page capture

Vivaldi can grab a picture of the whole webpage or part of it and saves it automatically inside a note or as a file in your disk. See More

Top Pro

Built for power users

Vivaldi includes lots of niche functionality such as the ability to move tabs to any side of the screen, turn images on and off, or render pages with monospace fonts. See More

Top Pro

Compatible with most Chrome extensions

Since Vivaldi is built on Chromium, the same base as Chrome (among other browsers) is built on, it was possible for Vivaldi developers to allow Chrome extensions to run in their browser. See More

Top Pro

Tabs can be stacked

Tabs can be grouped under a single tab to easily keep track of all open webpages. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Vivaldi is available on Windows, Linux and OSX. See More

Top Pro

The UI can be customized with ease

Since Vivaldi uses JavaScript, React, Node.js, Browserify and multiple npm packages to build the browser, it can be customized with ease by anyone who knows HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. See More

Top Pro

Reader mode

Vivaldi has a built-in reader mode so you can remove all the clutter in news pages and read only the content, you can also customise the reader mode, like font size, style and colours. See More

Top Pro

Tab bar position can be changed

Users can change tab bar position to top, bottom left or right See More

Top Pro

Updates via dialog box

Unlike most modern browsers (but like most browsers of yesteryear), Vivaldi gives you a dialog box when an new version comes out; it doesn't just update silently in the background. The dialog box tells you about the changes that have been made, and lets you chose when you want to update. See More

Top Pro

New built in ad-blocker/tracker-blocker

Vivaldi teamed up with DuckDuckGo to provide a blocker, which blocker trackers and ads. See More

Top Pro

Synchronisation

Everything can be synced with a Vivaldi account. Though there's still no mobile version, you can sync between computers and OSes. See More

Top Pro

Notes

A notes panel allows leaving notes on webpages and can include screenshots for reference and have tags and organized in folders to help manage them. See More

Top Pro

Tab behaviour can be customised

The order you toggle, open, close or clone tabs can be modified to match a workflow that best works for you. For example you can choose tabs to toggle in recent order so you can go back and forth between the last most useful tabs without needing to change their position on the tab bar. See More

Top Pro

Allows navigating to the next page without searching for the link

A feature called fast forward puts a dedicated button before the address bar that is designed to help you navigate to the next page of a multi-page article, forum thread or search results without having to hunt for the link. Pressing spacebar at the end of the page also does fast forward (if it was found/enabled in the page) See More

Top Pro

Analytical history

View graphically the most visited pages on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis. See More

Top Pro

Manage bookmarks very well

Vivaldi has an excellent bookmarks system. Bookmarks can be easily accessible via Speed Dial, side-bar, bookmarks bar, quick commands. No more messy bookmarks bar is needed and location bar suggestion is improved thus! See More

Top Pro

Ability to search through settings, history, open tabs, bookmarks in one place

A feature called Quick Commands (accessed via Ctrl + Q) allows quickly getting to settings, history, open tabs, bookmarks with incremental search. See More

Top Pro

Full of customizable keyboard shortcuts (can be completely keyboard-driven)

It's possible to change and add keyboard shortcuts for basically all commands. It also has single key shortcuts to execute actions with one click. See More

Top Pro

Command-line like feature to run many actions

A feature called Quick Commands (accessed via Ctrl + Q) allows quickly running commands or getting to settings, history, open tabs, bookmarks with incremental search. See More

Top Pro

WebRTC IP leaking can be disabled

A built-in setting called "Broadcast IP" will stop the IP leaking with WebRTC when disabled. See More

Top Pro

Non-closable fixed tabs

A setting lets you prevent closing fixed tabs so you don't close anything important by accident. See More

See All

score 6 · Answer 3

Vimium

Top Pro

Great for navigation

Very powerful, flexible browsing plugin for keyboard navigation. Great for navigation, tab management and history/bookmark search. See More

Top Con

Buggy

DevotedLaverna's Experience

not sure yet See More

Top Pro

Just basic shortcuts

Covers quite basic actions. Still a great start for keyboard cowboys. See More

Top Con

Shows hints but when you type them it does nothing

PassionateKarora's Experience

Very buggy. Slows down browser. Sometimes it shows hints in the center of the screen for no reason. See More

Top Con

Slow

See All

score 7 · Answer 4

cVim

Top Pro

Covers a lot of actions

SophisticatedItzpapalotl's Experience

Works great, mostly stable, and has a lot of keybindings that make using the mouse a thing from the past See More

Top Pro

Works with local file URLs

Top Pro

Easy to configure

You don't need to know any scripting language to set up its behaviour. See More

See All

score 10 · Answer 5

Surfingkeys

Top Pro

Works well with Firefox

Top Pro

Key assignments can be customised

score 1 · Answer 6

w3m

Top Pro

Light on resources

Top Pro

Support for several elements not found in terminal browsers

Although w3m is primarily a text-based web browser which runs inside the terminal, it supports and renders several elements which other terminal-based browsers cannot like images, tables, tabs or frames. See More

score 3 · Answer 7

Saka-key extension

Top Pro

Key assignments can be customized

Top Pro

Works fine for Firefox

Top Pro

Simple keystroke navigation

For example, Firefox shows all links and you can press a key to open the link. See More

See All

score 3 · Answer 8

Keys for Safari

Top Pro

One of the only keyboard navigation extensions available on Safari.

Top Con

Not available (as of my writing) on Firefox or Chrome.

DashingAngelia's Experience

It renders the Keys so nicely on the page that it's much simpler and more fun to sue. It was a really easy install from the mac app store, it's one of the only options available for mac. See More

Top Pro

Available on the Mac App Store

Top Pro

Most beautiful looking Keyboard navigation extension

See All

score 1 · Answer 9

Luakit

Top Pro

Highly-configurable

Answer 10

12 Options Considered

My Recommendation for Qutebrowser

My Recommendation for Qutebrowser

Vim-style keyboard shortcuts and commands for rapid navigation

Requires additional support and plugins for video playback

Easy integration with pass

Steep learning curve

Vim-style scripting allows easy assignment to key strokes that can replace many plugins

Fast and light on resource usage

Configuration can easily be synchronized

Highly customizable

The "pop up" commands / history feature

Userscripts

Great for Privacy

My Recommendation for Vivaldi

My Recommendation for Vivaldi

Forced Bloat

Mouse gestures

Most of it is proprietary

Provides keyboard navigation out-of-the-box

Custom search engines

Web Panels

Built-in page capture

Built for power users

Compatible with most Chrome extensions

Tabs can be stacked

Cross-platform

The UI can be customized with ease

Reader mode

Tab bar position can be changed

Updates via dialog box

New built in ad-blocker/tracker-blocker

Synchronisation

Notes

Tab behaviour can be customised

Allows navigating to the next page without searching for the link

Analytical history

Manage bookmarks very well

Ability to search through settings, history, open tabs, bookmarks in one place

Full of customizable keyboard shortcuts (can be completely keyboard-driven)

Command-line like feature to run many actions

WebRTC IP leaking can be disabled

Non-closable fixed tabs

My Recommendation for Vimium

My Recommendation for Vimium

Great for navigation

Buggy

Just basic shortcuts

Shows hints but when you type them it does nothing

Slow

My Recommendation for cVim

My Recommendation for cVim

Covers a lot of actions

Works with local file URLs

Easy to configure

My Recommendation for Surfingkeys

My Recommendation for Surfingkeys

Works well with Firefox

Key assignments can be customised

My Recommendation for w3m

My Recommendation for w3m

Light on resources

Support for several elements not found in terminal browsers

My Recommendation for Saka-key extension

My Recommendation for Saka-key extension

Key assignments can be customized

Works fine for Firefox

Simple keystroke navigation

My Recommendation for VimFx

My Recommendation for VimFx

My Recommendation for Vim Vixen

My Recommendation for Vim Vixen

My Recommendation for Keys for Safari

My Recommendation for Keys for Safari

One of the only keyboard navigation extensions available on Safari.

Not available (as of my writing) on Firefox or Chrome.

Available on the Mac App Store

Most beautiful looking Keyboard navigation extension

My Recommendation for Luakit

My Recommendation for Luakit