Lubuntu 14.10 - Setting default browser

Question

How is the default browser set in Lubuntu 14.10?

In the absence of 'System Settings' (which is used in Ubuntu 14.10 etc), how are the default applications set in Lubuntu? I'm running Firefox and Chrome (and may use others), whilst Firefox seems to be set as the default browser, Chrome says it 'cannot determine or set the default browser' and had no method of setting the default as Chrome.

Solution 1

run the following in a terminal:

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

It will present you a list of available browsers that are installed, and lets you select your default one.

Solution 2

Click Start bar -> Preferences -> LXQT Settings -> LXQT Configuration Center -> Sessions Settings and then in 'web-browser' click 'search'.

The default folder should be /usr/bin.
Scroll and find 'google-chrome'

If it's not there, download google chrome from here and install it with 'Discover'.
Then redo the steps above.

Once set, re-login, or restart.

Solution 3

Run below command to update default settings:

sudo xdg-settings set default-web-browser google-chrome.desktop
sudo xdg-mime default google-chrome.desktop x-scheme-handler/http
sudo xdg-mime default google-chrome.desktop x-scheme-handler/https
sudo xdg-mime default google-chrome.desktop text/html

Solution 4

In Lubuntu there is an application in the menu called default applications for lxsession. It is under Preferences. Once you open it, merely navigate to web browser and choose the browser that you would like to be the default choice. Alternatively, there is a choice in Firefox and there probably is one in chrome as well where you choose it to be the default browser. In Firefox go to Edit->Preferences->General.

Solution 5

Go to preferences -> configure alternatives, in list groups, choose gnome-www-browser and set it to google-chrome-stable with the lowest priority. To test how it works, type gnome-www-browser in the console and chrome should pop off.

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Comments

[ChrisF]

Thanks Kamaradski, but that doesn't appear to work. Update alternative etc. opened & shows 4 browser (chrome {in automode}, firefox {manual}, chrome {manual}, & opera {manual}). It was set to chrome {auto}, which I changed to chrome {manual}. However, when selecting a link in my email client (thunderbird) it still opens in Firefox, even after a restart.

[ChrisF]

Thanks Rex, but that didn't work, even after a restart.

[Elder Geek]

@ChrisF Both Thunderbird and Firefox are Mozilla products. This is not surprising as firefox is installed. Try uninstalling firefox, run the config, choose your default, test the link and see if that works. If so, you could try reinstalling firefox and testing again. You might consider this useful as well: support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/…

[ChrisF]

Thanks Elder Geek, but that doesn't provide a solution. I tried removed Firefox (using Synaptic) but as soon as its reinstalled (both before and after running the update-alternatives config) it still fires up when selecting links in Thunderbird. Your Mozilla link doesn't include Lubuntu. As you suggest, this looks like a Mozilla issue, that Thunderbird is overriding the OS default preferences. I think this means Firefox has to be removed (which is a shame, since I quite like it) and I'll use Opera & Chromium as additional browsers, unless a solution is found.

[Arda]

This worked flawlessly with Lubuntu 14.04 with LXDE daily ppa installed. I didn't even need to restart or logout/login the pc.

[oussoulessou]

i've forgot to mention that it worked on lubuntu 18.10

[Hung Tran]

It doesn't work on Lubuntu 19.10 too. Although Chrome is already set a default browser with update-alternatives, but Chrome still asks for setting it as default browser, and my Firefox is still used as default browser.

[Hung Tran]

It works on Lubuntu 19.10. However, the menu item is "Alternatives Configurator".