Speed up web browsing by using Nicknames in Opera

A great feature called SpeedDial has been recently added to Opera. It's a solution that provides quick access to your "Top 9" websites and it's faster than using Bookmarks.Opera displays these nine websites on the new tab page of the web browser so that they become available right there.

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 large filling them with nonsense or nothing at all until I discovered what they are used for and how useful they can be.

I wouldn't mention it if I wasn't concerned there are 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 those sites and services with just a  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 to access 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 keywords in there.

Don't underestimate the power of shortcuts and avoid typing long URLs. It's also useful for people who like to use the keyboard as much as possible and avoid the mouse as much at the same time.

You can edit existing bookmarks in the bookmarks manager to add nicknames to them so that you can open them faster.

Update: The new Opera web browser is not supporting nicknames currently or the command line.

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