Default Browser for certain application

I use google chrome browser for private stuff, but on the same machine I have my work toolset. For work things I use Firefox, and I would be really happy If I could assign it as default for HipChat (my work communicator app).

2 Answers

I faced the same problem and here is what I've done in order to open links from the Slack application in Firefox browser while Google Chrome is my default browser.

First you have to create a bash script that will recognize environment variable. I used DEFAULT_BROWSER variable and the script is in the /home/max/.scripts/default-browser.sh file, which is displayed below :

#!/bin/bash
if [ "$DEFAULT_BROWSER" == "" ]
then DEFAULT_BROWSER=google-chrome
fi
$DEFAULT_BROWSER "$@"

Then you have to create a desktop application (/usr/share/applications/default-browser.desktop):

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Default Web Browser
GenericName=Web Browser
Comment=Access the Internet
Exec=/home/max/.scripts/default-browser.sh %U
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
Icon=google-chrome
Type=Application
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml_xml;image/webp;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;x-scheme-handler/ftp;

Now you can set this new desktop app as a default browser:

xdg-settings set default-web-browser default-browser.desktop

After doing all these steps you should be able to set the default browser via the environment variable. Try do the following:

DEFAULT_BROWSER=firefox slack

All links you open from slack should be opened in Firefox.

However, if you don't want to set this variable every time and run Slack from the terminal you can modify /usr/share/applications/slack.desktop as seen below :

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Slack
StartupWMClass=Slack
Comment=Slack Desktop
GenericName=Slack Client for Linux
Exec=env DEFAULT_BROWSER=firefox /usr/bin/slack %U
Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/slack.png
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Network;InstantMessaging;
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/slack;

The main line is:

Exec=env DEFAULT_BROWSER=firefox /usr/bin/slack %U

Hope this helps.

1

you can make a launcher to open it in firefox.

Open your favorite text editor. type the following lines:

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open
[Desktop Entry]
Name=HipChat
Comment=Work Chat
GenericName=HipChat
X-GNOME-FullName=HipChat
Exec=/usr/lib/firefox-esr/firefox-esr
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Type=Application
Icon=firefox-esr
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;image/gif;image/jpeg;image/png;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;
StartupWMClass=Firefox-esr
StartupNotify=true

Save the file as HipChat.desktop. From the file manager, right click on the file and set as executable.You should now have a working launcher that opens HipChat in Firefox. To have it appear in your menu, open a terminal navigate to where your file is and type:

sudo cp hipchat.desktop /usr/share/applications

NOTE: if you are not using ESR, or if it is located in a different folder on your system, edit the references to firefox as is needed.

2

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