Thunderbird on Linux Not Honoring Default Browser – Fix

IE10 has an option in the desktop Internet Options settings dialog under the Programs tab to specify that links and tiles be opened in Desktop Mode:

(it's disabled here as it's set by Group Policy)

The Group Policy location for these settings is in both User Configuration and Computer Configuration at Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Internet Explorer\Internet Settings:

The executable in Linux that opens a resource with your "favorite" program is called xdg-open. It is somewhat complicated, but you can add additional rules using xdg-mime install. However, I don't know if you can even do this for something like a specific URL.

This becomes further complicated in that specific desktop environments use different executables and methods for opening their default programs. For instance KDE has kde-open, but not every KDE application seems to use this.

Regardless, I got this partially working just using a shell script and a list of domains/URLs in a file. You can tweak it to your liking.

Note: You may need to repeat this process for other executables depending on your desktop environment. For example, Gnome has gvfs-open, KDE has kde-open, and XFCE has exo-open. (Even then, it might not work for every application.)

Note: The shell script is dependent on pcregrep being installed on your system.

1. Find the xdg-open executable

   which xdg-open
   

2. Create a new directory in your home folder

   mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
   

3. Add the following to your ~/.bashrc file

   ~/.bashrc

   export PATH="${HOME}/.local/bin:${PATH}"
   

4. Create the shell script in the newly created folder. (Be sure to edit the top four variables so they are correct for your system!)

   ~/.local/bin/xdg-open

   #!/bin/bash
   
   DOMAIN_LIST_FILE=~/'domains.txt'
   OTHER_BROWSER='/path/to/other-browser' # For instance /usr/bin/firefox
   BROWSER_OPTIONS='' # Optional, for command line options passed to browser
   XDG_OPEN='/path/to/xdg-open'
   
   if echo "$1" | pcregrep -q '^https?://'; then
       matching=0
       while read domain; do
           if echo "$1" | pcregrep -q "^https?://${domain}"; then
               matching=1
               break
           fi
       done < "$DOMAIN_LIST_FILE"
   
       if [[ $matching -eq 1 ]]; then
           "$OTHER_BROWSER" $BROWSER_OPTIONS ${*}
           exit 0
       fi
   fi
   
   "$XDG_OPEN" ${*}
   

5. Create the list of domains in your home folder

   ~/domains.txt

   stackexchange.com
   stackoverflow.com
   superuser.com
   

6. Log out and log back in to have the settings take effect