It turns out that someone implemented a Mouse Gestures for Internet Explorer plugin. It seems to work really well!
If you’re wondering what Mouse Gesturea are, the short answer is that it’s a fast way to instruct a program to do certain things, like shortcut keys on the keyboard. They’re great for programs that require your hand to be on the mouse anyway, like web browsers. The user holds down a mouse button, and draw a simple shape on the screen really fast with your mouse. The application interprets it and translates it into a command, which it then performs.
For instance, by holding down a button and making an L-shape, the browser window closes. An up-down motion asks for a page refresh. Those are the simple gestures; they let you skip the button search effort. I guess it’s like learning a sign language to instruct the computer on what to do.
You can have more complex operations. Some that I’ve found useful are: clone the current page, open up a new (blank) window, show me the web page source, blank out this image. Once you consider a large number of operations, it’s easier to remember the pictographic gesture than which of the many buttons or menu options does what you want.
I highly recommend trying it out. It may sound hokey, but it grows you on you really fast.
