This looks really cool! My current setup is Firefox with VimFX[0] and an elaborate config.js, but when the NixOS package gets merged I will definitely try it.
For anyone wanting to stick to stock Firefox ESR, I highly recommend checking out VimFX.
0: https://github.com/akhodakivskiy/VimFx
The big downside of VimFX compared to Glide is lack of Firefox internal API documentation. I've had to dig through Firefox source code several times to find out how to do things e.g. wrangle tabs that would have been easy to do with the WebExtensions APIs. The fact that Glide makes these APIs available in the config file is the part I'm most excited about.
In Show HN: Glide, an extensible, keyboard-focused web browserakhodakivskiy
VimFx
CoffeeScript2013–2025
akhodakivskiy / VimFx
VimFx
Vim keyboard shortcuts for Firefox
24Distinct people
27Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
1.4KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Vim keyboard shortcuts for Firefox
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
This looks really cool! My current setup is Firefox with VimFX[0] and an elaborate config.js, but when the NixOS package gets merged I will definitely try it. For anyone…
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HN mentions by year27 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2013-08-24 03:39:10 UTC to 2025-10-01 20:57:04 UTC.
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View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
VimFx – Vim keyboard shortcuts for Firefox
Note: VimFx is a legacy extension for Firefox 115+, requiring the
LegacyFox shim (see below).
VimFx is a Firefox extension which adds short, Vim-style keyboard shortcuts
for browsing and navigation, for a near mouseless experience.
Doesn’t change your browser in any way. Everything can be disabled.
Easy for beginners, powerful for advanced users. Not just for Vim fanatics.
Modeled after Vimium for Chrome.
New to VimFx? Check out Questions & Answers!
Power user? Make a config file!
In either case, have look at the the documentation and the wiki.
VimFx is made by these awesome people.
Installation Instructions
Before installing VimFx, make sure LegacyFox is installed. On Linux, you can
issue the commands below; on other operating systems, you can copy the files
from the LegacyFox repository into your Firefox installation directory.
git clone https://git.gir.st/LegacyFox.git
cd LegacyFox
sudo make install # set DESTDIR= for custom install location
Why VimFx was created
Even before Vimium there was Vimperator for Firefox. In my opinion,
Vimperator has too many features and aggressively changes the default Firefox
appearance and behavior. Vimium is exactly what I need in terms of added
functionality, but for Chrome. That’s why I decided to develop a similar
extension for Firefox.
VimFx will be nice to your browser and to your habits. Promise.
– Anton Khodakivskiy, VimFx’s original author.
Key Features
VimFx has concise shortcuts for most commonly performed actions. Many simply
invoke standard Firefox features. That is preferred over re-implementing similar
functionality.
Press f to mark links, text inputs and buttons on the page. Then
either type the hint or the text of a marked element to click
it. This command has many variations, for example to copy links or open them in
new tabs.
Search with / and cycle between matches with n and
N.
Open a new tab with t, close it with x. Reopen it again
with X. Switch between tabs with J and K, or
some of the several other tab commands.
Scrolling left/down/up/right: h, j, k, l.
Top/Bottom: gg, G.
Page up/down: space, shift-space.
Half a page: d, u.
Use Caret mode to copy text without using the mouse.
There are of course many more shortcuts! Press ? to see them all, and
then / to search among them. Click on a command or open VimFx’s
options page in the Add-ons Manager to customize the default shortcuts.
You can temporarily disable VimFx by using Ignore mode. Press i to
enter it, and shift-escape to exit. Use the blacklist to
automatically enter Ignore mode on specific sites.
There’s also an article on ghacks.net which is a good introduction.
Alternatives
If you’re looking for a WebExtension replacement for VimFx, check out these
extensions:
Vimium-FF
Saka Key
Vim Vixen
Tridactyl
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
27 sourcesThe really cool thing about Waterfox is that REAL vim keyboard navigation via VimFX[1] has been supported.
The integration is much deeper than what Vimium and the other WebExtensions allow.
https://github.com/akhodakivskiy/VimFx
In Waterfox: Fast and Private Web BrowserI'm sorry but this is near unusable since the death of XUL and introduction of WebExtensions. I was a truly avid user of VimFX which did the same thing.
Vimium these days does not work when a page hasn't finished loading and it doesn't work on blank pages (about:blank) or any other "system page" (like the preferences or addons). The "o" key can no longer highlight the address bar but brings up a non-native address bar that does not find my bookmarks as it should.
Imagine you couldn't click on another tab with your mouse pointer while the current active one is loading. Yes, it's as terribly frustrating as it sounds.
In the XUL days I could even use vim shortcuts to access every button in the Firefox UI!
Luckily there is a solution for now. VimFx[1] is still being updated and works with the LegacyFox shim!
[1] https://github.com/akhodakivs
Read the rest
> and you can see it in its comments
I don’t see any comments on that article?
—⁂—
You’re missing the picture.
All that LegacyFox looks to do is allow loading old-style extension manifests, by converting them to new-style, just with the difference that they’re given unfettered access to internals. This allows you to load the extensions, but doesn’t guarantee that they will work.
By the end of 2019, XUL Templates, XUL Overlays, XBL Stylesheets, XUL Documents, and XBL had been removed <https://groups.google.com/g/firefox-dev/c/24SH5R0AcC0/m/B6Sc...>.
Last year, XUL Layout was finally removed <https://crisal.io/words/2023/03/30/xul-layout-is-gone.html>.
I haven’t tried actually running any of this stuff, but I get the impression that this means that pretty much no extensions from the 56 era will work any more. Look at VimFx’s changelog <http
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s://github.com/akhodakivskiy/VimFx/blob/master/CHANGELOG...>, and yeah, regular fixes have been required, with more and more things breaking. This is a pretty good demonstration of what the problem with XPCOM extensions was, as the article pointed out: they had too much access to browser internals, which made it hard for the browser to change things without breaking extensions, and necessary changes just kept on breaking extensions again and again and again, and extension developers were tired of it. In the WebExtension era, extensions almost never break, despite major concrete improvements in the browser having been made that in the past would have broken at least every interesting extension out there.
XUL (by which I mean XUL, not XPCOM) isn’t completely gone yet, because it was such a core part of the browser that it takes a long time to kill it completely, but most of what made it it is gone.
XPCOM extensions made Firefox unmaintainable. Although they were a great thing, they had to die for Firefox to survive.
That article was wrong in many ways, even more 4 years later, and you can see it in its comments
XUL is a core part of Firefox, and can still be re-enabled for addons today
https://gir.st/blog/legacyfox.htm
https://github.com/akhodakivskiy/VimFx
But I guess only randos on the internet have the technical know-how
In Manifest V2 phase-out beginsIt has been used under the radar till this day. VimFX[1] uses it for keyboard navigation that works. Real keyboard navigation is impossible to implement with WebExtensions. And yes yes, Vimium-FF[2] and all the other extensions that attempt to do this are broken.
Here are some things that won't work with WebExtensions…
* Vimium-FF does does not respond to input when a page is loading. With VimFX I press the h key to “go back one page” and the l key to “go forward one page” and it works while the page is loading, in Vimium-FF it does not. Imagine, in age of 5 MB web pages, not being able to go back because the page is loading.
* Focusing on the address bar is only possible if you open a new tab. With VimFX you press o and you can immediately begin to type your URL in your current tab. In Vimium-FF an HTML/CSS/JS input box opens in your vie
Read the rest
wport. It can access your bookmarks and history but sorts them in strange ways and it does not understand bookmark keywords.
* Opening a new tab disables Vimium-FF. Firefox can be set to show either “Blank Page” or “Firefox Home” when opening a new tab. Both of these options will focus on the address bar and focus can’t be reclaimed using Vimium-FF shortcuts. Actually, it can’t be reclaimed at all. So, effectively, opening a new tab using the Vimium-FF shortcut t disables Vimium-FF. The ugly way around it is to install the New Tab Override add-on and set an HTML document as your new tab URL.
* It routinely and unexplainably fails when browsing some pages.
XUL and VimFX will be sorely missed. It still works in Waterfox, but who knows for how long…
[1] https://github.com/akhodakivskiy/VimFx/
[2] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/
I used to be a loving VimFX [0] user. It had intelligent link hints (essentially, links it thinks you are likely to want, e.g. because they're big, get single-key shortcuts). The scrolling was actually native, as in equivalent to hitting the arrow keys. I don't think any of the other Vim emulator plugins ever replicated that. Vimium doesn't, Tridactyl doesn't, and Vim Vixen was horribly broken.
Apparently VimFX still runs via some hacks on modern Firefox versions? The last release was even in 2022. Maybe I should give it a try again.
[0] https://github.com/akhodakivskiy/VimFx
In Vimium – A browser extension that provides Vim-style keyboard controls> But instead we get “Colorways”
Yeah, the browser situation sucks and it's getting worse by the day.
> I remember being upset for months when they killed XUL.
You know what, still a week does not pass without me mourning the death XUL...
I'm currently using Waterfox quite a bit. VimFX is still somewhat maintained[1] and works with Waterfox Current.
It should be added that this browser is owned by an adtech company called System1. But my only alternatives at this point is surfing in a straitjacket (without VimFX) or using Waterfox. Haven't really found any apparent wrongdoings by System1 yet, but I guess it's a matter of time...
[1] https://github.com/akhodakivskiy/VimFx
In Vimium C – Extension to navigate website by keyboard shortcutsI recently installed Tridactyl¹ as a Firefox extension². It has a ton of features but I my original intent was to only replace the functionality of two non-WebExtension add-ons:
* VimFx³ provided handy keyboard short-cuts for working within the browser
* ItsAllText⁴ which allowed me to use GVim to edit and save the contents of a text box
While going through its builtin tutorial, I found that it also supports keyboard-based selection of text (similar to that shown in this article). While this feature is documented as not yet being stable, I’ve found that it works well in my exeriment.
I’ve yet to incorporate the rest of Tridactyl’s extra functionality into my workflow but what they’ve achieved with the WebExtensions API is very impressive. Also, and importantly, the built-in tutorial and documentation are excellent.
While working from hom
Read the rest
e, I’m currently using Windows 10 so I’ve ran into one issue⁵, “Encoding of non-Latin-1 characters entered in external editor gets messed up with Unicode-based external editors on Windows” (and it looks like that should be fixed soon).
1. https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl
2. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tridactyl-vim...
3. https://github.com/akhodakivskiy/VimFx
4. https://github.com/docwhat/itsalltext/
5. https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/issues/876
I am btw still maintaining VimFx[1], and you can run it in current versions of Firefox with a shim[2].
[1]: https://github.com/akhodakivskiy/vimfx/releases
[2]: https://github.com/girst/legacyfox
In Show HN: Krabby – A keyboard interface to the web, inspired by KakouneVimFx is perfectly compatible with multiprocess, as stated in the issue you linked:
https://github.com/akhodakivskiy/VimFx/issues/860#issuecomme...
The issue is that VimFx is not feasible to convert into a WebExtension.
In uBlock Origin Maintainer on Chrome vs. Firefox WebExtensionsVimFx is not compatible with multiprocess, it will stop working soon.
See https://github.com/akhodakivskiy/VimFx/issues/860 :
- You can use the current VimFx for the rest of 2017.
- Then, Vimium is your best bet: philc/vimium#2425
- VimFx is free software, so if somebody feels like converting it to a WebExtension they're totally free to do so! (But you're probably going to spend your time more wisely on Vimium.)
- I hope to create a new add-on with the best parts from VimFx some day.
- Firefox will become a better browser! It’s sad but worth the sacrifice.
Vimium-FF does works right now: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/
In uBlock Origin Maintainer on Chrome vs. Firefox WebExtensionsI use VimFx on Firefox, I guess that scrolling issue doesn't bother me because I hadn't noticed it until I visited the link you shared.
I've started looking for VimFx alternatives since the following doesn't sound great:
https://github.com/akhodakivskiy/VimFx/issues/860
https://github.com/akhodakivskiy/VimFx/issues/860#issuecomme...
In Mozilla launches voice search, file-sharing and note-taking tools for FirefoxSlightly off-topic, but does anyone use a Vim plugin for Firefox? I keep trying to switch, but the scrolling of VimFX drives me crazy. Here's an issue outlining the behavior: https://github.com/akhodakivskiy/VimFx/issues/830
Are there any other Vim plugins without this issue?
In Mozilla launches voice search, file-sharing and note-taking tools for FirefoxShowing the 15 most recent of 27 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.