Change default Webbrowser in OSX

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
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#1

Dear All,

Does anybody know how to AS the change the default browser in OSX …?

#2

Open System Preferences, Click on Internet, Select the Web tab, Choose your favorite / needed browser

#3

I think for now you are limited to mucking around with a plist or using GUI scripting. Neither option is very appealing. :?

#4

How about if you wanted to GET the user’s default browser info? (IE, Safari, Opera, etc). Would that also involve parsing some plist, or does Applescript have a command to provide that automatically?

#5

This is what I use in OS X 10.2.8 (not my code). The handler returns the path to the default browser but this snippet gets the name.

set def_browser to displayed name of (info for alias GetDefaultBrowser())

on GetDefaultBrowser()
	set creatorType to word -1 of (do shell script ¬
		"defaults read com.apple.LaunchServices |grep -C5 E:html  | grep -w LSBundleSignature")
	set {text:creatorType} to (text of creatorType) as text
	tell application "Finder"
		set {defBrowserName, browserContainerAlias} to ¬
			{name, container} of application file id creatorType
	end tell
	return (browserContainerAlias as text) & defBrowserName
end GetDefaultBrowser

– Rob

#6

I got an error 1 at the do shell command after copy/pasting the script.
But after replacing the character just before the “| grep” with a single space, it was working fine.

Thanks (especially after half a year!)

#7

WARNING!

I know for various users that the string “E:html” is not contained in all OSs.

#8

Thanks for the warning, JJ. Unfortunately, the code isn’t mine (I think I poached it from someone on applescript-users) and I don’t know how to address the issue. :confused:

– Rob

#9

So what does this single letter mean? ‘E’ is for “extension”? How about “U:http”?

#10

Does this technique work in Panther as well? I’m getting lots of plug-in info, like Quicktime and RealNetworks stuff, but I don’t get any information about the default browser in OS X.

#11

Using “U:http” should work for most of systems.