Speed up surfing by using Nicknames in Opera

A great feature called SpeedDial has been recently added to Opera. It’s a solution providing quick access to your “Top 9″ websites and it’s faster than using Bookmarks. However the limited number of sites that you can add does not make it a universal feature to speed up surfing in general.

I have been using Opera for a very long time but did not know what the so called Nickname feature for Bookmarks was all about. I’ve been ignoring them or filling them with nonsenses until I understood what they are for and how useful they can be. I wouldn’t mention it if I wasn’t concerned there’re still many of you who have never taken advantage of this feature, especially if you are new to using Opera.

A nickname can either be one char or a string of your choice. By choosing unique nicknames wisely you can assign a shortcut to each of your bookmarks or only to the ones you use most often.

Then it’s really easy to access them with few keystrokes. For example, I have assigned the “tv” nickname to a TV guide website and now when I need to know what’s on I press F2 type tv and that’s it. Pressing F2 gives focus to Opera’s “commandline” but you can also use Ctrl+T, F8 or whatever else for it. It’s like using Launchy for URLs.

It is also possible to simple enter the nickname in the address bar and load it that way. The same feature is available in firefox as well only named keyword in there.

Don’t underestimate the power of shortcuts and avoid typing long URLs. It’s also useful for people who want to use keyboard for surfing more than mouse.