Posted on by John Barrdear

Wanted: CTRL-TAB in my browser to work as ALT-TAB does in windows

Hey, Google, Microsoft and multitudinous Firefox geeks!

At the moment, both Chrome and Firefox have the same functionality on this:

  • CTRL-TAB cycles through your tabs in the order that you’ve got them physically arranged
  • CTRL-PGUP/PGDN also does this, although obviously CTRL-PGUP goes in the opposite direction

In Internet Explorer, CTRL-TAB works the same as in Chrome and Firefox, but they don’t have the CTRL-PGUP/PGDN functionality.

I don’t know how Safari or Opera work.

I want CTRL-TAB to work in my browser like ALT-TAB does in Windows and APPLESYMBOL-TAB does on a Mac:  The order in which it cycles through them should be the order in which I last viewed them, not the order in which I opened them.  If possible, like the operating system versions, it should also show small images of each tab as I cycle through them.

That is all.

4 Replies to “Wanted: CTRL-TAB in my browser to work as ALT-TAB does in windows”

  2. This feature is called MRU (most recently used). You’ve been able to do this in both IE and Firefox for a long time.

    IE: Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced -> Browsing -> “Use most recent order when switching tabs with Ctrl+Tab”

    FF:
    The simpler way: download an extension like Ctrl-Tab or Tab Mix Plus.
    The slightly harder but extensionless way:
    1) type about:config in the address bar
    2) click past the warning page
    3) search for “browser.ctrlTab.previews”
    4) set this to “true” by right-clicking then selecting Toggle, or by double-clicking on the entry.

    Chrome: apparently you can do it with Ctrl+Z. Google steadfastly refuses to allow this option. (http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=5569)

  4. Opera offers this as default. It is impossible to comprehend the reasoning behind the decision of not offering the MRU tab switching even as an option in Chrome. This is by far the biggest problem with the otherwise great browser. For me, the missing of MRU tab switching with Ctrl+Tab is a deal breaker. I cannot use a browser without it. That’s why I vote for Opera. IE and Firefox are OK, because you can get the functionality as Caitlin states. Chrome is just a sad loser in this regard. What a waste.

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