>What I really want is a keyboard centric power user browser. I don’t think any of the big browsers could even turn into something like that at this point. Power user feature like keyboard shortcuts are an after thought.
Big browsers are fine, you absolutely can browse with a keyboard in vimperator/pentadactyl/tridactyl without touching a mouse in months (I do). Other users above/below suggested vimium and vimperator-style extensions, and just look at the difference. Vimium is simple and works great in 9/10 cases, but there's always that one little element or a quirk where it doesn't work. Vimperator and its descendants work everywhere, but they often require a lot of manual labor and workarounds just to be able to put the mouse away. And the difference between 90% and 100% keyboard browsing is massive (no context switching).
Thing is, the modern web itself is super hostile to the keyboard control and power users, I don't think this has anything to do with browsers.
> you absolutely can browse with a keyboard in vimperator/pentadactyl/tridactyl
> Vimperator and its descendants work everywhere
Vimperator at least has been dead for years, ever since Firefox Quantum. The switch to WebExtensions was too much, and not everything could be converted anyway. Don't know about the others you've listed.
Vim Vixen is the closest I've found for the majority of my uses.
Big browsers are fine, you absolutely can browse with a keyboard in vimperator/pentadactyl/tridactyl without touching a mouse in months (I do). Other users above/below suggested vimium and vimperator-style extensions, and just look at the difference. Vimium is simple and works great in 9/10 cases, but there's always that one little element or a quirk where it doesn't work. Vimperator and its descendants work everywhere, but they often require a lot of manual labor and workarounds just to be able to put the mouse away. And the difference between 90% and 100% keyboard browsing is massive (no context switching).
Thing is, the modern web itself is super hostile to the keyboard control and power users, I don't think this has anything to do with browsers.