How to make chrome (stop asking to be) the default browser

browserchromedefaultsmime-types

I am running Linux Mint Debian edition (essentially Debian testing) and the Cinnamon desktop environment. Every time I launch google-chrome it asks to become the default browser. I have told it to do so in all ways I can think of but I still get this pop-up:

enter image description here

What I have tried:

  • Clicking on "Set as default" in the pop-up.

  • Making chrome the default in its settings:

    enter image description here

  • Using my desktop environment's (cinnamon) settings app to set it as default:

    enter image description here

  • Associating it with all relevant mimetypes in the various ways and files where such things are defined:

    $ xdg-mime query default text/html 
chrome.desktop

$ grep chrome .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list
text/html=chrome.desktop
x-scheme-handler/http=chrome.desktop
x-scheme-handler/https=chrome.desktop
x-scheme-handler/about=google-chrome.desktop
x-scheme-handler/about=google-chrome.desktop;
text/html=emacs.desktop;google-chrome.desktop;firefox.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/http=chrome.desktop;

$ grep chrome /usr/share/applications/defaults.list
application/xhtml+xml=google-chrome.desktop
text/html=google-chrome.desktop
text/xml=gedit.desktop;pluma.desktop;google-chrome.desktop
x-scheme-handler/http=google-chrome.desktop
x-scheme-handler/https=google-chrome.desktop

    In those files, I replaced all occurrences of firefox (my previous default) with google-chrome. No other browsers are defined anywhere in the file:

    $ grep -E 'firefox|opera|chromium' /usr/share/applications/defaults.list \ 
   .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list
$

  • Launching chrome as root in case that helps but it won't let me:

    enter image description here

  • Using Debian's alternatives system to set it as default:

    $ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/www-browser www-browser /usr/bin/google-chrome 1080
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/google-chrome to provide /usr/bin/www-browser (www-browser) in auto mode

$ ls -l /etc/alternatives/www-browser
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 Jan 23 17:03 /etc/alternatives/www-browser -> /usr/bin/google-chrome

None of these seem to have any effect. Will no one rid me of this turbulent pop-up?

Best Answer

For Chromium, when I choose "Don't ask again", Chromium stores the following setting in my ~/.config/chromium/Profile 1/Preferences file:

{
   "alternate_error_pages": {
      "enabled": false
   },
   "apps": {
      "shortcuts_have_been_created": true
   },
   "autofill": {
      "negative_upload_rate": 1.0,
      "positive_upload_rate": 1.0
   },
   "bookmark_bar": {
      "show_on_all_tabs": true
   },
   "bookmark_editor": {
      "expanded_nodes": [ "1" ]
   },
   "browser": {
      "check_default_browser": false,
      [...]

For standard Google Chrome:

  1. Close Chrome.
  2. In Terminal, paste open ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Preferences (and then hit enter)
  3. search for "browser":{​ and replace it with "browser":{"check_default_browser":false,

When you start chrome back up it shouldn't prompt you anymore.

Note:

The preferences setting seems to differ substantially between chrome versions. On Chrome-78.0 the setting

"browser":{"default_browser_infobar_last_declined":"13236762067983049"}

seems to work. I assume it simulates clicking the x.

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