The mess that is 'default browser'

[Chris Green]

On Sat, Nov 06, 2021 at 06:01:04PM +0000, Tony Arnold wrote:
> Hi Chris,
> 
> On Sat, 6 Nov 2021 at 16:41, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
> 
> > I have recently changed from Firefox to Opera on one of my systems.
> > So I told Opera to set itself as the default browser, hmmmm!
> >
> > On investigating I found that the whole 'default browser' set up is a
> > disaster, after setting Opera as default I see the following on the
> > 21.10 system where I changed from Firefox to Opera:-
> >
> >     /usr/bin/gnome-www-browser points at
> > /etc/alternatives/gnome-www-browser
> >     which points at /usr/bin/opera.
> >
> >     /usr/bin/x-www-browser points at /etc/alternatives/x-www-browser
> >     which points at /usr/bin/firefox.
> >
> >     /usr/bin/sensible-browser is a script which checks the BROWSER
> >     environment variable if that's not set will try gnome-www-browser
> >     and then x-www-browser.
> >
> >
> Have you tried setting the default browser using 'Default Applications'
> under settings? That might set all the relevant links.
> 
It sets both gnome-www-browser and x-www-browser so that's an
improvement! :-)

However the BROWSER environment variable will still get used by
sensible-browser.


-- 
Chris Green