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Multi Links speeds up your browsing, bookmarking

Open up or bookmark multiple URLs in one fell swoop with this handy Firefox extension.

Josh Lowensohn Former Senior Writer
Josh Lowensohn joined CNET in 2006 and now covers Apple. Before that, Josh wrote about everything from new Web start-ups, to remote-controlled robots that watch your house. Prior to joining CNET, Josh covered breaking video game news, as well as reviewing game software. His current console favorite is the Xbox 360.
Josh Lowensohn
2 min read

Here's a must-have Firefox add-on. Called Multi Links, this extension lets you simply right click and drag your mouse across the screen to select multiple links at once. It's just like selecting multiple files on your computer, and highly effective for tearing through a page of links you want to look at or save for later.

By default, selected links open up in new browser tabs, although you can go into the options to choose whether you want them to open up in new windows, or be bookmarked instead. You're also able to change the color scheme of the box, and the outlines of the selected links--just in case you're into that sort of thing.


Want to open up multiple URLs? Just drag your mouse over them with this handy extension. CNET

Advanced users can utilize keyboard shortcuts to limit mouse work. For instance, holding down the control or shift button while creating a box means you can hop around a page of results--selecting the items you want to open or save, while skipping over others. The extension is also coded to ignore extra links on search pages, which keeps you from unintentionally opening up the cached and similar links on each result. This worked fine on Google and Bing, but not on Yahoo or Ask.

This extension is definitely worth keeping around because it does not interfere with normal, right-click behavior. My one hope is that future versions will forgo the options menu in place of a small pop-up, or slide-out menu that asks what you want to do with links after selecting them.

See also: Snap Links (which does the same thing, but has not been updated since February) and Selection Links.