What environment variable should I use to set a default web browser?

Question

I'm trying to set my default web browser as google chromium inside of either my .bashrc or .profile. What Environment Variable do I need to set in order to achieve this?

Edit: Here's some more information:

A. I don't have sudo access to the machine.

B. Due to the nature of the machine, It needs to be rerun every login.

C. Ideally it runs at login with no dialog.

Solution 1

I've found a solution:

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

you could also use:

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

or:

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

If you wish to automate this at login, just put this one liner in your .profile

Solution 2

You would use the command sudo update-alternatives for this purpose. For the default web browser, sudo update-alternatives --config x-www-browser will start an interactive dialog that lets you set the default, which will remain the default even across sessions.

If you really want to set the default after every reboot, use

update-alternatives --set x-www-browser /path/to/browser

in something like /etc/rc.local, as it needs root permission.

Comments

[0x2b3bfa0]

Worked the Jos answer?

[Brian Sizemore]

I've updated my question, and I do not have root/sudo access to the machine, It needs to just set the browser for my user.

[Jos]

It may be possible to use update-alternatives on a user-by-user basis by providing another "alternatives directory" in the command (the --altdir flag). This directory would contain symlinks to the various browsers available on the system. Please see man update-alternatives and experiment a little.