I use the wheel button as the Back button (configurable via Intellimouse), so it is not treated as mouse button 3.
To open links in new tabs i use Ctrl-Click. Another way i navigate the historical chain of visits is to use Alt-left arrow/right arrow.
I think its easier for the user, if pages in other sites opened automatically into a new browser, because that way the user doesn’t have to first check is the page in a other site or not. Then if the user wanted to open a page in the same site into a new tab, he could click the middle button.
I prefer Opera even without mouse gestures! The gestures are impossible on a MacBook with no dedicated right-click. Thing is, I’m posting this in Safari in XP because of the superior font rendering.
Konquerer sounds good. I want some of those things in Opera 10.
My top shortcut gets combines your 2, 3 and 4:
Search: CMD/CTRL+T opens a new tab, then type g, then type your search terms and hit enter. Who needs a separate search UI element?
Opera’s search inside a page by typing ‘.’ is teh hotness. I use it all the time.
I also like fast-forward: CMD/CTRL+right_arrow. Why bother finding the ‘next’ link on a multipage news story or in search page results?
Middle click to close tabs? sounds weird. Just use CMD/CTRL+W (or the close gesture)
Opera also has a great zoom. Just hit plus or minus. Or hold CMD/CTRL and use the scroll wheel. It resizes all page elements, except the odd unruly flash one. In the past this was bad because the pictures looked horrible at anything other than 100%, but now it’s pretty good.
All I can say is IE7Pro - can set up new web sites (and searches) to always open in a new tab so Alt+D type + enter. Also give you mouse guestures in IE !!!
Simon
How could I forget the most important shortcut of all in Opera!
Paste and go: CMD/CTRL+B
@nameless the address bar is already in focus after CMD/CTRL+T.
And just to add to my previous post, I actually find IE7 worse than IE6 for general browsing because Opera, FF and Safari are so good and I feel like IE7 is holding me back when I try real surfing. At least I have no illusions when using IE6. Safari needs some of Opera’s features desperately, at least most of Opera’s features are available to FF as extensions.
And as for bookmarks, the only time I use them is for icanhascheezburger.com
Jeff,
Perhaps Antonio was asking that you change your links default behaviour to be like shift middle click is (in firefox at least, I’m too lazy to check ie) ?
When you want to eventually read another page middle click on the mouse is the behavior you probably want, but if you want to read the other page wheNOW you really want middle click to open the tab and automagically take you to that tab, also when you ctrl+f4 to close the tab you want the browser to automagically take you back to what you where reading (without all that looking at the tab bar realizing that you have 5 tabs that say ‘Coding Hor…’ open with the only indication of what you where on being if the text is in red or black…)
Jeff,
Thanks for sharing, I appreciate it. I was pleasantly surprised to find the the middle button click also closes tabs in Visual Studio 2005 
Always enjoy your posts, keep up the great work.
It’s really sad to read this post - how is it possible to not have seen all this on linux (copy-paste using high-light/mark and middle mouse button) and firefox during the last two-three years?
Most of the entries here are insightful - this one’s just lame. It makes you wonder if M$ or rather how much they payed you to publish this.
Amazing. 