We wrote about Vimium, the Chrome extension that adds customisable keyboard shortcuts, back in 2010 and 2012. But I think we buried the lede: If you install Vimium, you can open links without using your mouse, and without hitting the tab key over and over.
If you browse the web a lot, you probably use your keyboard for everything but clicking links. Now you can ignore your mouse for minutes at a time.
With the extension installed, just hit the F key on a webpage, and little keyboard shortcuts will pop up over every link. To open the link of your choice, type the respective shortcut. Or hit shift-F, and the links will open in a new tab.
And unlike the DeadMouse extension, Vimium works just as well for image links as for text links.
Vimium offers dozens of keyboard shortcuts for all kinds of actions, which are super cool, but most of these are just simpler replacements for existing shortcuts, like R for refresh and H for going back in your history. That one link trick, however, is killer.