Set the default browser, system-wide, on Manjaro

Question

In Ubuntu I used

sudo update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

to set the default internet browser manually.

In Manjaro I get:

sudo: update-alternatives: command not found

I have set Firefox as the default in its settings and want it to stay so.

After installing Chromium, the default browser is now Chromium, although I reconfirmed Firefox as such and in Chromnum settings it says: "Chromium cannot determine or set the default browser".

How to make Firefox default browser?

Does manjaro have the x-www-browser symlink? And to what it links? Also, is update-alternatives available in Manjaro? — Braiam, Oct 08 '15 at 12:21
If your system doesn't have `x-www-browser`, what is “changing the linked binary” supposed to mean? Are you trying to change the default browser? That depends on the application that launches it — I don't think Manjaro has a system-wide default (and it's more of a user preference anyway). What application are you interested in? — Gilles 'SO- stop being evil', Oct 08 '15 at 22:58
@Gilles - that phrasing of the title is due to the edit made by [Braiam](http://unix.stackexchange.com/users/41104/braiam), while I was just asking out of curiosity thinking that the ubuntu option would be available in Manjaro. If not, that's my answer. (Installing Chromium, it took over as default browser. I think I fixed it simply from the FF GUI.) — , Oct 09 '15 at 07:09
@cipricus Oh, I see, sorry. Your original title was [misleading](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem) too. Once again, I don't think Manjaro has a system-wide or per-user default, so you'll get better help if you mention which applications you use that launch a browser. — Gilles 'SO- stop being evil', Oct 09 '15 at 09:47
@Gilles - I have now edited the question to fit the new title, which is basically what I want. — , Oct 09 '15 at 09:54

score 26 · Answer 1 · edited May 11 '18 at 07:20

26

For users of i3wm, in addition to editing ~/.config/mimeapps.list and ~/.i3/config, you also need to change $BROWSER from ~/.profile, set it to /usr/bin/chromium, to prevent browser sessions emerging from the terminal from opening the wrong browser.

edited May 11 '18 at 07:20

Ébe Isaac

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answered Mar 30 '18 at 10:03

Anas Harby

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Actually, I find that this is the *only* solution that solved my problem. This *is* a separate answer. For applications that open the default browser (such as Jupyter) changing just the key bindings won't work. – Ébe Isaac May 11 '18 at 07:01
for me removing the palemoon package was also required `pacman -R palemoon-bin` – akiva Feb 24 '19 at 21:42

score 20 · Answer 2 · answered May 25 '16 at 07:52

20

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

answered May 25 '16 at 07:52

Niklas Siefke

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Where `chromium` is whatever you'd type at the command prompt to start your preferred browser. Eg, it could be `google-chrome-stable`. – Tom Hale May 27 '17 at 07:16
Works for voidlinux with i3. – xoryves Jun 07 '18 at 08:30
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Does not work on Manjrao I3: `xdg-settings: $BROWSER is set and can't be changed with xdg-settings`, but Anas answer worked: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/434465/28262 – Florian Brinker Nov 20 '18 at 15:43
For Google Chrome, I had to use `xdg-settings set default-web-browser google-chrome.desktop`. `xdg-settings set default-web-browser google-chrome-stable` gave a *xdg-settings: invalid application name* error; using the full path for *google-chrome-stable* gave the same error. – apaderno Aug 09 '20 at 07:25

score 14 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 14 '20 at 12:49

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This question is a bit old, but I would like to register my solution. After struggling with xdg-settings, what worked for me was xdg-mime.

So, check your default browser with:

xdg-mime query default x-scheme-handler/https

And change whatever browser you want to use. Make sure you use the .desktop after the browser name.

xdg-mime default google-chrome.desktop x-scheme-handler/https
xdg-mime default google-chrome.desktop x-scheme-handler/http

Then, check again:

xdg-mime query default x-scheme-handler/https

edited Apr 14 '20 at 12:49

AdminBee

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answered Apr 14 '20 at 12:24

Karlo Guidoni

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Of course, nothing else worked for me. Do you know in which files this configuration is kept ? For me .config/mimeapps.list contained chrome even before xdg-mime... – Andrei Boyanov Jul 20 '20 at 13:18
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I think mimeapps.list is the default config file for this. Look for this file in other locations. See examples [here](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/XDG_MIME_Applications#mimeapps.list) – Karlo Guidoni Jul 21 '20 at 12:02
Confirmed working on latest install of manjaro when opening webpage links directly from terminal and in intellij. – li x Sep 11 '20 at 09:04
This is the best-working answer. I installed brave after having fiddled with mimeapps.list , where I already had set chromium as my default. Brave took over being the default, despite all the entries in mimeapps.list, but this set it back to chromium – transient_loop Nov 25 '20 at 17:41

score 6 · Answer 4 · answered May 26 '17 at 06:35

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Edit your ~/.config/mimeapps.list and replace references to firefox.desktop with google-chrome.desktop.

If you use google-chrome-stable to launch chrome, use that instead, followed by .desktop.

answered May 26 '17 at 06:35

Tom Hale

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score 5 · Answer 5 · edited Jan 18 '17 at 20:49

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In case someone else has the same issue…

Edit your config file:

nano ~/.i3/config

and change

bindsym $mod+F2 exec …

to your browser of choice (e.g. bindsym $mod+F2 exec google-chrome-stable) Save and reload your config file (mod+Shift+R)

Should be all set…

edited Jan 18 '17 at 20:49

phk

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answered Jan 18 '17 at 20:31

chris.r

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This seems overly i3-centric. – Arnaud Meuret Mar 31 '18 at 09:22
Yes... it was. Now on xfce, which Tom addresses below. – chris.r Dec 04 '18 at 02:15

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 18 '20 at 02:46

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I tried most of the answers in here. This is what I ended up doing

sudo pacman -R firefox

Just removed firefox. If I install firefox again with sudo pacman -S firefox it sets as default again so annoying.

answered Sep 18 '20 at 02:46

Tono Nam

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score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 28 '22 at 06:47

If you are using i3 with Palemoon pre-installed and want to replace it with a cooler browser, like brave:

Please edit ~/.config/mimeapps.list and replace references to Moon.desktop with brave.desktop.

To easily replace all the Moon cases to brave in the mimeapps.list file with vim, use :%s/Moon/brave/gc and answer yes to each case.

Set the default browser, system-wide, on Manjaro

7 Answers7