The mess that is 'default browser'

[Chris Green]

I have recently changed from Firefox to Opera on one of my systems.
So I told Opera to set itself as the default browser, hmmmm!

On investigating I found that the whole 'default browser' set up is a
disaster, after setting Opera as default I see the following on the
21.10 system where I changed from Firefox to Opera:-

    /usr/bin/gnome-www-browser points at /etc/alternatives/gnome-www-browser
    which points at /usr/bin/opera.

    /usr/bin/x-www-browser points at /etc/alternatives/x-www-browser
    which points at /usr/bin/firefox.

    /usr/bin/sensible-browser is a script which checks the BROWSER
    environment variable if that's not set will try gnome-www-browser
    and then x-www-browser.

On another (21.04) system where I have been using Epiphany/Web in
parallel with Firefox both gnome-www-browser and x-www-browser are set
to epiphany-browser in /etc/alternatives but the BROWSER environment
variable is still set to Firefox.


So I am at a bit of a loss as to what program name to use to call a
web browser in scripts!  I guess the best approach might be to use
sensible-browser and set the BROWSER environment variable.  It does
make a bit of a nonsense of 'default browser' though!

-- 
Chris Green