I've been using conkeror for a while now, and like in any keyboard driven browser, the hinting system is at the heart of your daily browsing.
One thing I like in conkeror's hinting system, is the ability to filter out links using part of the words making up the link, but I found it annoying to go as far as 123456789 for hinting if the filtering didn't match exactly one link, or if you didn't want to use the filters. So I decided to try out another method, using my home keys as hints, but breaking the filtering (as most keys are now used by hints). To use it simply add this to your rc, and adapt the key sequence to your layout's homerow:
hint_digits="dhutenosai";
Here you go, no more need for streching out to follow links.