Recently set up Ubuntu. I have a ton of bookmarks from my Windows computer that I'd like to be able to access on the new Ubuntu system with Firefox. I have these all store in subject specific folders. Right now when I click on one of the .url files, it ends up taking me to a text editor displaying the contents of the file, rather than automatically taking the web browser to the specific bookmarked page.

How can I make Firefox open a browser and go to the specific web pages automaticlly by double-clicking on the various .url files?

I can't answer your questions regarding opening url files because I don't know what they are (probably just plain text files with the URL inside?).

But what I know is that firefox saves bookmarks in a file called "bookmarks.html". All the bookmarks are saved there. You can go to Bookmarks->Organize Bookmarks->Import and Backup->Import HTML and import this file. In Windows XP this file is in "Documents and Settings/USERNAME/Application Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/SOME_STRANGE_STRING.default".

I hope this helps.

Same here. I don't know what these .url files are. If what you want is to import your bookmarks from IE, then just install firefox in Windows. Use it to import them, then export them as html and you can take this file to linux and import it again on virtually any web browser.

.url files are plaintext and just provide information. Doubleclicking I don't know about in general but Krusader and Konqueror recognise them so it probably is some XDG/KDE/MIME thing. Else a simple shell function like "url2browser() { exec firefox $(awk -F'URL=' '/URL=/ {print $2}' "$@"); }" could work if you can tie it to some DE/WM action.

Thanks all for the help. Sounds like unSpawn is on to the solution there. Guess I just need to figure out a script for these files when I have a chance. I know how to import/export bookmark files, I just like having my bookmarks in separate folders for organizing.

And yes, the .url files just contain text info and the web address. It's how IE saves bookmarks.

Word of advice ive only had linux for a few months and this should work
first of all download and install the latest version of mozilla firefox and right click and open with firefox.
alternatively you can download wine to run windows programs and use the latest version of internet explorer.
hope this helped