Most computer users know that they can select text with the mouse by holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse to highlight text displayed on a page.
This works considerably well for plain text but once you try to do the same on link text you will notice that it won’t .
Link text refers to the anchor used to describe the link on a page on the Internet or a local resource.
When you try to select the text of a link you will run into an issue. Your browser won’t highlight the anchor of the link but activates a drag and drop operation as soon as you start moving the mouse to highlight all link text.
There are ways around this: start the highlighting before or after the link to avoid this, open the source code and copy the text from there, or use Firefox’s Developer Tools to do the same.
Update: Firefox users can hold down the left Alt-key on the keyboard to select any link text like normal text. This means that they don’t need the extension for this.
Select like a Boss for Firefox, Chrome and Opera (the new one) introduces another option that makes the operation convenient. It allows you to select link text like any other text displayed in the browser.
The feature was part of the old Opera browser which supported it natively (the new Opera does not support it at all).
Once you have installed the extension in your browser, it does not require a restart, you can select link text just like any other text.
To select link text move the mouse over it, click and hold the left-mouse button and move the mouse left or right to select part or all of the link text.
To copy it use Ctrl-c or the right-click context menu to do so.
Dragging and dropping is still possible as well. The extension distinguishes between vertical and horizontal movement. To drag a link perform the same action but move the mouse vertically (up or down) instead to do so.
The extension works on most sites. Firefox users with NoScript or a comparable extension installed need to allow scripts on the root domain for the extension to work on it.
Closing Words
Select like a Boss is a useful add-on for Firefox, Chrome and the new Opera browser browser. If you copy link text regularly in the browser, you may want to give it a try to improve the usability of the process.