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I have motor problems with my right hand, and so I drive my GUIs mostly with the keyboard.

Using the pointer (either mouse or any substitute) is not impossible, but slow and hard.

One of the things I have not figured out yet is how to easily copy links from webpages I'm reading in the browser. I can focus links by starting the "Quick search" i.e. Control+F, /, or ', and when a link is focused I can open a new tab on it with Control+Enter. But sometimes I'd like to copy just the URL without opening it, for example when it is something else than http or https.

Note that this is different from the context menu you get from right-clicking on a link. Right-clicking acts on the link under the pointer, this question is about the focused link.

I use Firefox on Linux. Linux is non-negotiable but if this feature exists in another browser I'll consider it.

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The extension Fast Copy Links by ColdSpirit is described as :

For copy link - hover cursor on link and press Ctrl+C (MacOS: Cmd+C). You can to open menu and copy list of all copied links before!

The permission to "Access your data for all websites" is necessary for absolutely all extensions that run on the site pages. This extension performs the following actions on the pages of the site, so it also needs this permission.

  1. Detects when a key is pressed (Ctrl+C/Cmd+C).
  2. Gets a link under the cursor.

If it works for you, this could be a solution.

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  • thanks, sadly the operative words are "Hover cursor" and "link under cursor". Not what I'm after. It's actually really depressing how people reflexively suggest purported solutions involving the mouse, even though my very first sentence explains how that is unsuitable.
    – q.undertow
    Commented Dec 31, 2023 at 3:19
  • I hoped that it will pick up the link that you selected using your method. Sorry that this didn't work for you. I'll see if I can find something else.
    – harrymc
    Commented Dec 31, 2023 at 7:23
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    Question: Do Mouse Keys help?
    – harrymc
    Commented Dec 31, 2023 at 10:05
  • Excellent question! Yes, I do use MK - I would probably kill myself if they didn't exist :( . But: 1. even with MK, it is a terrible chore to position the pointer over a link - it's just too small a target. and 2. MK go away with Wayland - I'm lucky I'm on a distro / desktop that hasn't switched yet.
    – q.undertow
    Commented Jan 1 at 2:48
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    On the phone I many times need to zoom into the page to click on a small link. Perhaps you can do this with MK for precision.
    – harrymc
    Commented Jan 1 at 7:13
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With Caret Browsing (F7) the following work-around is possible:

  • Select all of the link text using keys like Control+Shift+Left and Control+Shift+Right
  • Right click to get a context menu. Independent of the cursor position, there's an item "View selection source", pick it. New tab opens with the source code for the page with the corresponding part centered and selected.
  • The link URL will be right next, so select it, then copy with Control+C.

This is a bit longer and more complex than I hoped, but it does beat trying to place the mouse precisely on the link so I can right click it (for me, YMMV).

The reason Caret Browsing is needed is to be able to move the selection in steps 1 and 3 as well as to extend it.

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