Vimium
Hacker ApprovedRanked 14 of 70 browser extensions by recommenders
Brings vi-style keyboard navigation to any website, so links are clicked by key instead of mouse. Critics find it limited.
Brings vi-style keyboard navigation to any website, so links are clicked by key instead of mouse. Critics find it limited.
33 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 29
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 88%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 29 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 7.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Click links by key, not mouse
“it's such a productivity booster, especially the ability to navigate links without pointing at them to click”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven” “Push a button, every icon is now labeled with a key, type that key, counts as a click, done.”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven” “Vimium gives me a keyboard-centric interface to help avoid mouse usage”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Your 'App' Could Have Been a Webpage (so I fixed it for you)” - Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven”
- Comment from 5 Jun 2026 in “Mouseless – keyboard-driven control of macOS/Linux/Windows”
Good for keyboard-driven workflows
“using the keyboard for navigation, while it sounds like a chore, is really quite excellent”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Opera: Rewind The Web to 1996 (Opera at 30)” “It made my sentiments very much favour keyboard-driven workflows”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven” “vimium is awesome. i'm getting used to it now.”
Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Hntui – A TUI for Hacker News” - Comment from 5 Jun 2026 in “Mouseless – keyboard-driven control of macOS/Linux/Windows”
Vi-style keys work across websites
“it's following the vi logic across websites, rather than having to learn everyone's idea of how to navigate”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven” “Vim controls really found their way into my muscle memory through Tridactyl and Vimium”
Comment from 2 Jul 2026 on Hacker News “Vimium is just very fun to use, especially if you're using Vim/Neovim/Helix”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “Making macOS Bearable” Makes browsing faster and more productive
“it's such a productivity booster”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven” “it makes me so much faster”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Window Hints – Keyboard-first window switching”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Feels limited to some users
“as I was unhappy with other tools (vimium, shortcat etc)”
Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “Neverclick: Desktop application for performing mouse actions with your keyboard” “found Tridactyl and Vimium to be frustratingly limited”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Twelve Days of Shell” “found Vimium very limited”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Twelve Days of Shell”
Other browser extensions people recommend
The four most recommended other browser extensions, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SponsorBlock | 137 | 4 | 97% | 13 | — | Approved |
| Firefox Multi-Account Containers | 76 | 13 | 85% | 10 | 7.5 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| NoScript | 61 | 11 | 85% | 12 | 10 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| Claude in Chrome | 53 | 42 | 56% | 9 | — | — |
| VimiumThis page | 29 | 4 | 88% | 10 | — | Approved |
What people said
30 of the 35 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“especially with the vimium plugin”
“vimium is awesome. i'm getting used to it now.”
“vimium is my solution to the web.”
“I use Vimium [0] for this very reason -- highly recommend it!”
“it's such a productivity booster”
“it's such a productivity booster, especially the ability to navigate links without pointing at them to click”
“it's following the vi logic across websites, rather than having to learn everyone's idea of how to navigate”
“Push a button, every icon is now labeled with a key, type that key, counts as a click, done.”
“It made my sentiments very much favour keyboard-driven workflows”
“You can always take it to the next level by using an extension like vimium”
“it makes me so much faster”
“as I was unhappy with other tools (vimium, shortcat etc)”
“Vimium gives me a keyboard-centric interface to help avoid mouse usage”
“Vim controls really found their way into my muscle memory through Tridactyl and Vimium”
“the best I'd seen of mouseless UI”
“HN is great to navigate with it”
“Vimium for the browser solves most of the mouse needs.”
“The Vimium extension [1] for Firefox has a similar mode for links called "linkHinting" which I've mapped to s[2] for a similar experience in the browser”
“using the keyboard for navigation, while it sounds like a chore, is really quite excellent”
“Look for software that supports those vi keybindings, for example Vimium in the browser”
“I also keep that minimal and instead rely on keyboard tools like Vimium”
“Combining this with plugins like Vimium for Chromium based browsers”
“Vimium in the browser is great”
“it made using the galaxy xr much more usable than chrome”
“Vimium seems great for navigation.”
“Vimium is just very fun to use, especially if you're using Vim/Neovim/Helix”
“found Tridactyl and Vimium to be frustratingly limited”
“found Vimium very limited”
“I started seriously using vimium on chrome and firefox”
“that keyboard greatness clashes with my Vimium browser extension”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.