[SOLVED] Firefox on wheezy question -- default browser option

radiodee1 · 02-26-2013, 07:16 AM

I installed firefox in the directory '/home/<me>/bin'. This works for me, but I made a mistake. When firefox starts up it asks if you want to make it your default browser. Stupidly I said yes. It did something there. Does anyone know exactly what firefox does to make it into your default browser? Since that time I cannot get links from icedove to open up in firefox correctly. They open a firefox window but they do not open up the link in the window (iow it's empty).

I want to reverse whatever it is that firefox does to make itself into your default browser and see if that changes the way that icedove works. Does any body know? Thanks.

Fred-1.2.13 · 02-26-2013, 10:39 AM

Take a look at this:

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/...irefox-default

Not sure if messing with these settings will remove FF as the default or not.
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EDIT: From Gnome: System>Preferences>Preferred Applications
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EDDY1 · 02-26-2013, 09:22 PM

You have to change iceove url settings I experienced the problem before, will get back to you soon.

EDDY1 · 02-26-2013, 09:24 PM

http://forum.mepiscommunity.org/view...hp?f=8&t=28635

radiodee1 · 03-01-2013, 07:18 AM

thank you. I am away from the computer with the problem. I will post as soon as I try these out.

radiodee1 · 03-02-2013, 08:00 AM

nope. didn't work. I tried the stuff from the Mepis community forum. I do believe that setting the FF preference to 'make this my default browser' is what started the problem. Here's another example of the messup. I open Gnome Terminal. I type:

Quote:

echo http://www.google.com

Then I press return. Then with the mouse I hover over the text with the url and right click. Then I select 'Open Link'. What should happen is some browser is opened with the www.google.com page in it. What does happen is that I get a browser window, but nothing in it. (this is the same behavior as with icedove... a FF window with nothing in it.)

What I've tried:
I set up update alternatives with my version of FF in it, so that if you type 'x-www-browser http://www.google.com' from the command line, a FF window pops up with the google page in it. This works. I also use x-www-browser in my 'preferred applications' setting. I am also using testing and xfce4. At this point I'm kinda despairing, thinking there's no solution to my problem. I have a laptop with the same xfce4 and wheezy and it doesn't have this problem. On the laptop I never made the mistake of using FF to set the default browser.

radiodee1 · 03-06-2013, 06:41 AM

HI. I edited the 'alacarte-made-1.desktop' file. Now things seem to work. The contents of the file are here. I edited the 'Exec' line, adding the '%U' that you see. The '%U' was what was missing (I think). Here's the complete contents of the file:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Icon[en_US]=firefox
Name[en_US]=firefox local
Exec=/home/me/bin/firefox/firefox %U
Comment[en_US]=local firefox
Name=firefox local
Comment=local firefox
Icon=/home/me/bin/firefox/icons/mozicon128.png

That '%U' seems to fix everything. I don't know if in the end it had to do with setting FF as the default browser. I think it did but have no proof. yay.

EDIT: the file for me is located at '~/.local/share/applications/alacarte-made-1.desktop'. The name of the file would probably be different on another system.