What Is Caret Browsing and How Does It Work

You may have heard of caret browsing; This is one of the many accessibility features that browsers include. But what is caret browsing, and how does it work? We explain this below.

What Is Caret Browsing?

Caret browsing or caret navigation is an accessibility feature that lets you navigate the web using your keyboard. This is useful for people who are disabled, prefer to use a keyboard, or have a damaged mouse/touchpad.
This feature is available in most browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. But notable exceptions are Safari and Opera.

How to Enable Caret Browsing

Enabling caret browsing is quite simple. Just open your browser and press the F7 key. Your browser may ask for confirmation, so select On or OK. To disable the feature, you can press F7 again.

You can also turn on caret browsing from the settings in Google Chrome. To do this, go to Settings > Accessibility and toggle on Navigate pages with a text cursor.
If you’re a Vivaldi user, enabling caret browsing is unfortunately not as easy as pressing F7. However, you can type “chrome://settings/accessibility” in the address bar and turn on navigate pages with a text cursor.

What to Do With Caret Browsing

There are three main things you can do with caret browsing:

Navigating Web Pages: To navigate Web pages, you can use the arrow keys and move your cursor on the screen.

Opening links: To open links, first move the cursor to the link with your arrow keys and then press Enter. To open a link in the background tab, use Enter + CTRL.

Selecting text: The easiest way to select text is to turn on caret navigation, hold down the Shift key, and use the arrow keys to select text.

Browse With Your Keyboard

Thanks to Caret Browsing, you’ve got an easy way to navigate the web. Of course, this is helpful for people with disabilities, but it can also be useful if you prefer a keyboard or have a mouse problem.
In addition to caret navigation, Chrome comes with various advanced settings, including several accessibility features.