Sometimes it’s the less widely used, more niche browsers that have the best ideas. Take, for example, mouse gestures, which let you perform actions like going back a page or closing a tap with a swipe of the mouse (or a swipe across the trackpad). That means no need to keep looking down at the keyboard to find shortcut combinations, or hunting around on screen for a toolbar button or menu option. Once you’re used to them, mouse gestures can really speed up the way you get around the web.
Browsers like Opera and Vivaldi are pioneering this most useful of features, but fortunately you can also enable them in the big-name alternatives (including Chrome and Safari) with the help of third-party extensions.
Mouse gestures in Opera and Vivaldi
Full marks to Opera and Vivaldi—as we’ve written about before, these browsers are packed with helpful, innovative features, and a lot of them are missing or more limited in function in the browsers from the major names in tech. You’ll find mouse gestures built into both Opera and Vivaldi, so there’s no need to download an extension.
In Opera, click the Easy setup icon in the top right corner (it looks like three horizontal sliders), then choose Go to full browser settings. Scroll down to find and turn on the Enable mouse gestures toggle switch, then follow the Learn more link to familiarize yourself with what they are.
Enabling mouse gestures in Opera.
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Start with the basics: Hold down the right-mouse button and move left to go back, or hold down the right mouse button and move down to open a new tab (note that you need to perform these actions on a blank area of the current webpage). You’ll also see what are called “rocker” gestures, enabled by rocking between the right and left mouse buttons.
Over in Vivaldi, you can get to the mouse gestures feature by clicking the Settings button (the cog icon down in the lower left corner), then navigating to the Mouse tab. Enable Allow Gestures to start using mouse gestures, or Perform Gestures with Alt Key if you’re using a trackpad (this means the Alt key triggers gestures, not the right mouse button).
Vivaldi gives you plenty of control over mouse gestures.
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Vivaldi gives you more control over gestures than Opera does, because you can edit and delete specific gestures, as well as add new ones of your own. You can also change the sensitivity of gestures too, and enable “rocker” gestures using both mouse buttons. Use the Restore Default Gestures button to undo any changes and start again from scratch.
Click on any gesture to see a preview—so tabs can be closed by holding down the right mouse button, then moving down and right, for example. You’ll soon get a feel for how they work, and once you’ve committed them to muscle memory, they can be a much faster and more intuitive way of performing actions in your browser.
Mouse gestures in other browsers
Third-party extension developers have thankfully filled the gap when it comes to mouse gestures on the more high-profile browsers. The experience isn’t quite as fluid as it is with Opera and Vivaldi, where these features are built right in, but you can get a pretty close approximation with the help of an add-on.
Chrome
If you’re using Google Chrome, then one of your best options is CrxMouse Chrome Gestures. Once you’ve added it to the browser, you can play a cute little arcade game to learn the ropes, then click the extension icon on the toolbar to see the available gestures, and access the extensive settings list—you’re able to do everything from changing the look of the mouse pointer to enabling on-screen trails for your gestures.
CrxMouse Chrome Gestures introduces itself with a little game.
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Under Mouse Gestures on the extension settings page you can see all of the current gestures, make changes to them if needed, and add your own. You can also change the button or key used to enable these gestures, which is the right mouse button by default. You can even assign certain gestures to only work on certain sites.
Microsoft Edge
As Microsoft Edge is built on Chromium, it can use Chrome-compatible extensions like CrxMouse Chrome Gestures too. Another option is SmartUp Gestures, which also comes with plenty of options to play around with: You can change how gestures look on screen, for example, as well as edit the gestures themselves.
Firefox
Gesturefy is one of the top options for Firefox.
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If you’re a Firefox user, then Gesturefy is a great choice for your mouse gestures add-on. It comes with a very clean, accessible interface for managing and editing the enabled gestures, and it comes with a bunch of useful extras too: Gesture traces, a deactivation key option, the ability to disable gestures on certain sites, and support for rocker gestures.
Safari
Finally, for Safari users, there’s the appropriately named Mouse Gestures for Safari. The add-on gives you options to customize the gestures that are enabled, show visual representations of the gestures on screen, and change the sensitivity of the movements needed to trigger an action using a mouse gesture.
