Ways to Quickly Close Your Browser

We've all been there. Things are slow at work, and you find yourself somewhere you shouldn't be, like playing a game of online Scrabble or watching some painfully awful rendition of the national anthem on YouTube. Without warning, the boss comes walking in. In a state of panic, you fumble with your mouse and keyboard in an attempt to close your browser before it's too late. No such luck, as the six deadly words fill the air in your cubicle: "What's that on your screen?"

Don't let this nightmare scenario happen to you. Keyboard shortcuts help you hide or shut down your browser lickety-split.

Each browser uses a different keyboard shortcut:

• Chrome and Edge: Alt+F4 to close the active window
• Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera: Win+M to minimize all open windows to the taskbar, or Alt+F4 to quit the active instance of the browser\

In Windows 10, the Win+D hotkey toggles the desktop. Pressing it minimizes all currently open apps (foreground and background) to the taskbar, revealing the desktop; pressing it again brings those same apps back to their original position.

For all browsers, press Cmd+H to hide all active browser windows or Cmd+Q to quit the application altogether.