Default web browser in linux

Chromium

Chromium is the open-source version of Chrome. Chromium is available from the Universe repository, as package name chromium-browser. To install it, open the Terminal and enter sudo apt-get install chromium-browser.

Chrome

Chrome is Google’s web browser that is meant to be simple, extensible and fast. As well, you can use extensions like in Firefox.
Please be advised if you have a bug in Chrome, because it is not provided by a supported Ubuntu repository, the Ubuntu project is unable to provide support or a fix. One would have to seek support from Google directly. If you want Ubuntu support you may want to use Chromium.

Konqueror

Konqueror is KDE’s advanced file manager, web browser and document viewer. Konqueror is an open source web browser that supports the current web standards.

Opera

Opera is a web browser developed by Opera Software.

Please be advised if you have a bug in Opera, because it is not provided by a supported Ubuntu repository, the Ubuntu project is unable to provide support or a fix. One would have to seek support from Opera directly.

Dillo

Dillo is a lightweight and fast Internet browser. It does not have as many features as some of the other browsers listed here but it is well-suited for older computers that do not have enough speed or memory to run a full-featured browser.

Epiphany

Epiphany is a simple yet powerful web browser developed by the GNOME community. Its principles are simplicity and standards compliance. Simplicity is achieved by a well designed user interface which closely integrates with the GNOME desktop. Standards compliance is achieved on the HTML side by using the WebKit rendering engine; and on the user interface side by closely following the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines (HIG).

Lynx

Lynx is a character-based web browser that can be run inside a terminal or on the console.

Links

Links is a browser that may be be run in either text mode, or graphical mode.

ELinks

ELinks is an advanced text-mode browser.

Midori

Midori is a fast, lightweight graphical web browser based on Web Kit. Often used with the Xfce desktop environment.

Ubuntu Web Browser

Ubuntu Web Browser is a lightweight web browser tailored for Ubuntu, based on the Oxide browser engine and using the Ubuntu UI components. It is the default web browser for Ubuntu Phone OS. It is also included by default in the recent Ubuntu desktop releases.

Setting Default Browser

In the command line, type sudo update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

A list of installed browsers will be displayed with a different number next to each browser. Type the number corresponding to the browser of your choice.

WebBrowsers (последним исправлял пользователь 117 2015-10-05 14:27:00)

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GNOME

In the Default Applications section of the GNOME Settings, you can set your default web browser for your user in the «Web» dropdown.

Default for GNOME sessions (system-wide)

The default GNOME browser can be changed for the whole system by reconfiguring the alternative.

# update-alternatives --config gnome-www-browser

Default for KDE sessions (user-specific)

Under System Settings > Applications > Default Applications > Web Browser, change the «Open http and https URLs» setting to «in the following application» and choose your preferred browser from the dropdown list, then apply the change.

To change how htm or html files are handled when they are clicked in your file manager, change the preference under System Settings > Applications > File Associations, then search for «html» in the filetype search bar at the top. Under the «text» category, the «html» item lets you set the application preference in order. Move your favorite browser to the top.

Foreign applications

Default for foreign programs (system-wide)

Programs which are not designed for the user’s desktop environment do not obey the browser settings of the desktop environment (GNOME or KDE). For example, Thunderbird ignores desktop environment-specific browser settings. The default browser for generic applications can be changed for the whole system by reconfiguring the x-www-browser alternative.

# update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

Default for foreign programs (user-specific)

Some applications use xdg-open (part of xdg-utils). xdg-settings can be used to both get and change the default browser. Local settings can also be found in the users’ home in ~/.config/mimeapps.list.

$ xdg-settings get default-web-browser chromium.desktop

$ xdg-settings set default-web-browser firefox-esr.desktop

Also, you should change mimeapps.list since some applications don’t follow x-www-browser:

$ cat ~/.config/mimeapps.list [Default Applications] x-scheme-handler/http=google-chrome.desktop x-scheme-handler/https=google-chrome.desktop [Added Associations] x-scheme-handler/http=google-chrome.desktop x-scheme-handler/https=google-chrome.desktop

Removing alternative browsers from the system

This method involves removing all the other browsers installed on the system, so that the desired one remains the only one. Sometimes this is not feasable (multiuser system, dependencies) and is the least elegant.

Any of the previous methods is preferred to this one, but this method can be useful for lightweight systems.

Opening the default browser from a script

If you’re writing a script or application for Debian that needs to be able to open the default browser, your best option is to use thesensible-browser wrapper from the sensible-utils package. This tests the common symlinks (x-www-browser, gnome-www-browser, www-browser, etc.) and chooses the most «sensible» browser out of them.

The environment variable BROWSER can be set to override its selection and force it to always choose your desired browser.

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How to Change Default Web Browser and Email Client in Ubuntu

Ubuntu ships with a slate of default apps handily pre-installed, including Mozilla’s hugely popular Firefox web browser and Thunderbird e-mail client.

While both of these have their fans neither app is — shock — to everyone’s tastes or needs. We often get e-mails or tweets from people asking us how they can change the default browser in Ubuntu or set a different mail client as the handler for mail links, etc.

We’re not just talking about installing a different bit of software here but also how you set it as the system handler for a given file, link or content type.

It is super easy to change a whole slate of default application including web, e-mail, text editing, music and videos players, in Ubuntu. The settings panel where you can make these changes isn’t known to everyone, so we’ll take a quick look.

How to Change the Default Browser in Ubuntu

Mozilla Firefox is a solid, open-source and reliable window on the world wide web but it’s not everyone’s browser of choice. And that’s fine.

To use a different default browser in Ubuntu you will first, rather obviously, need to install a new one. How you do this depends on the one you want:

Open-source web browsers, like Epiphany, Chromium and IceWeasel, are available to install from the Ubuntu Software Center.

Major web-browsers, like Google Chrome, Opera and Vivaldi, must be downloaded from each project’s official website.

Whichever browser you choose, and however you choose to install it, once you have done so you can continue on.

To change the default browser for opening web links click on in other applications, e.g., instant messengers, Twitter clients, e-mail, etc, you need to use the Ubuntu System Settings tool.

You can launch System Settings a number of ways. One of the fastest is to the click the Cog icon in the far-right hand corner (far left on RTL systems) and select the ‘System Settings’ menu shortcut.

1. Open ‘System Settings’
2. Select the ‘Details’ item
3. Select ‘Default Applications’ in the sidebar
4. Change the ‘Web’ entry from ‘Firefox’ to your preferred choice

How To Change the Default Mail Client in Ubuntu

Ubuntu ships with Thunderbird as the default mail application. This means the app will open automatically when you click on an email address or a mailto link in most web-browsers, PDFs, instant messengers, and so on.

This convenience is super handy if you use Thunderbird, of course. But a lot of us don’t; we may use a lightweight client like Geary, GNOME stalwart Evolution, or rely on a web-mail service like Gmail or Outlook.

To change the default mail client in Ubuntu from Thunderbird to another application open System Settings > Details > Default Applications. Click the drop-down menu next to ‘Mail’ and choose your preferred client from the list.

To set Gmail as the default mail client in Ubuntu you must first install the ‘gnome-gmail’ package by hitting the button below. Once installed open System Settings > Details > Default Applications. Click the drop-down menu next to ‘Mail’ and choose ‘Gmail’ from the list.

Going Further

The same steps listed above can be used to make your favourite music player open when double clicking on a music file, have an application like VLC handle your .avi and .mp4 files, and so on.

Home / How To / How to Change Default Web Browser and Email Client in Ubuntu

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How to open default browser from command line Linux

On Ubuntu, you might have several web browsers installed, which are utilized according to your browsing preferences. Although, we all have a most favorite web browser to use 90% of the internet every day. In Linux, it is preferred to state the best browser as the default browser. This default browser will also allow you to open links from the terminal.

Checking default web browser:

To set, change or view the default browser through a terminal or user interface is simple yet straightforward.
Write out the below-given command to know the default browser of your Linux system.

You can look into the list of other default applications, including your default browser. For performing this, there are two methods, In the first method, you can use the below-given command, and it will redirect you to the Default Application windows.

Searching “Default Applications” in the activities is considered as the second method.

The highlighted web browser in the “Web” option is already picked as the default web browser.

You can also check out the list of other available alternatives for browsing the web on your system.

The output declares that “Google Chrome” also exists as a web browser on our Ubuntu.

Opening default web browser from the command line:

Now, we will try to open the google instance in the default web browser, which is “firefox” in our case. Utilize the below-given command in your terminal if you want to do so.

Here, you can see terminal command execution successfully open a google instance in our default web browser.

Changing default web browser:

For setting any other browser as the default one, you have to execute the “xdg” settings command with the browser name at the end. We will set “Google Chrome” as the default browser on our Linux system in the following example.

Again, open any web instance by specifying its URL in the “xdg” open command. Furthermore, we have chosen “Google” for the testing.

The output states that we are successful in setting “Google Chrome” as your default browser.

Conclusion:

As Linux users, we all have various installed web browsers, which we use according to our web preferences. Still, there exists a possibility of 90% using a single web browser for browsing activities which turns to be our default web browser. In this article, we have seen opening the default browser for any web instance from the command line. Furthermore, the procedure of viewing and setting any other alternatives to your default browser is also provided.

About the author

Talha Saif Malik

Talha is a contributor at Linux Hint with a vision to bring value and do useful things for the world. He loves to read, write and speak about Linux, Data, Computers and Technology.

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