Linux: command to open URL in default browser
LinuxBrowserDefaultLinux Problem Overview
What command we have to execute (from Java, but that should not matter) on Linux (different common distributions) to open a given URL in the default browser?
Linux Solutions
Solution 1 - Linux
The most cross-distribution one is xdg-open http://stackoverflow.com
Solution 2 - Linux
I believe the simplest method would be to use Python:
python -m webbrowser "http://www.example.com/"
Solution 3 - Linux
on ubuntu you can try gnome-open.
$ gnome-open http://www.google.com
Solution 4 - Linux
In Java (version 6+), you can also do:
Desktop d = Desktop.getDesktop();
d.browse(uri);
Though this won't work on all Linuxes. At the time of writing, Gnome is supported, KDE isn't.
Solution 5 - Linux
At least on Debian and all its derivatives, there is a 'sensible-browser' shell script which choose the browser best suited for the given url.
Solution 6 - Linux
###1 Desktop's -or- Console use:
sensible-browser $URL; # Opinion: best. Target preferred APP.
# My-Server translates to: w3m [options] [URL or filename]
## [ -z "$BROWSER" ] && echo "Empty"
# Then, Set the BROWSER environment variable to your desired browser.
###2 Alternative
# Desktop (if [command-not-found] out-Dated)
x-www-browser http://tv.jimmylandstudios.xyz # firefox
###3 !- A Must Know -!
# Desktop (/usr/share/applications/*.desktop)
xdg-open $URI # opens about anything on Linux (w/ .desktop file)
Solution 7 - Linux
I think using xdg-open http://example.com is probably the best choice.
In case they don't have it installed I suppose they might have just kde-open or gnome-open (both of which take a single file/url) or some other workaround such as looping over common browser executable names until you find one which can be executed(using which). If you want a full list of workarounds/fallbacks I suggest reading xdg-open(it's a shell script which calls out to kde-open/gnome-open/etc. or some other fallback).
But since xdg-open and xdg-mime(used for one of the fallbacks,) are shell scripts I'd recommend including them in your application and if calling which xdg-open fails add them to temporary PATH variable in your subprograms environment and call out to them. If xdg-open fails, I'd recommend throwing an Exception with an error message from what it output on stderr and catching the exception and printing/displaying the error message.
I would ignore the java awt Desktop solution as the bug seems to indicate they don't plan on supporting non-gnome desktops anytime soon.
Solution 8 - Linux
On distributions that come with the open command,
$ open http://www.google.com
Solution 9 - Linux
I think a combination of xdg-open as described by shellholic and - if it fails - the solution to finding a browser using the which command as described here is probably the best solution.
Solution 10 - Linux
For opening a URL in the browser through the terminal, CentOS 7 users can use gio open command. For example, if you want to open google.com then gio open https://www.google.com will open google.com URL in the browser.
xdg-open https://www.google.com will also work but this tool has been deprecated, Use gio open instead. I prefer this as this is the easiest way to open a URL using a command from the terminal.
Solution 11 - Linux
If you are in Windows10 (including WSL2 *nix shells) you can try:
explorer.exe https://stackoverflow.com
or
cmd.exe /c start https://stackoverflow.com/?foo=bar
Weird but it works!
Note: In the case of WSL there is a known bug which prohibits passing query parameters into the url. The workaround is to use "cmd.exe /c start url"