Accelerators were a form of selection-based search allowing a user to invoke an online service from any other page using only the mouse; they were introduced by Microsoft in Internet Explorer 8.

According to Microsoft, Accelerators eliminated the need to copy and paste content between web pages.

[3] Similarities have been drawn between Accelerators and the controversial smart tags feature experimented with in the IE 6 Beta but withdrawn after criticism (though later included in MS Office).

[4] Support for Accelerators was removed in Microsoft Edge, the successor browser to Internet Explorer.

[5] Microsoft introduced accelerators in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 as "activities."