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General discussion

Firefox not fully the default browser in Vista!!!

Jun 16, 2007 6:57AM PDT

Since the time I installed Windows Vista, there have been several apps that just will not except the fact that my default web browser is Firefox. Instead, IE will be launched. I have learned to work around the problem, but checking my emails with a third party notifier made me want XP back. The email notifier checks my two gmail accounts and my wife's gmail account. In XP all I had to do was click on the email that had the messages and I would auto login into my account within firefox. Now with Vista, it would launch IE instead of firefox. I have checked default apps under Vista and Firefox which both agree that Firefox is the default. For some reason though it was not working. Not only did it launch the wrong browser, but after checking one email account, I would have to manually log off and not just close the browser to check another account.

Here is the surprising fix that corrected it all. Thank you Apple for Safari! Not that I enjoy it better than Firefox. I could never give up my extensions. Safari, under preferences, showed that IE was my default browser. I quickly changed it to Firefox and now all my apps recognize Firefox as my default app. Now I no Vista has made some changes from XP which is the culprit in this case, but I suggest that Mozilla finds out how Safari made better sure that Firefox was the default browser than Firefox itself.

Discussion is locked

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firefox on vista fix
Aug 6, 2007 5:38AM PDT

Thanks so much for the tip! It was a great help.

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making ff2 the default for urls
Sep 1, 2007 6:44PM PDT

Yeah, ie7 opening links by default was annoying. Firefox is also set as my default browser, but I noticed ie7 remained the default for three file types, including .url. I poked default programs a bit and discovered how to make the switch:
Start, Default Programs, Associate a file type or protcol with a program, scroll to .url, select "change program", and browse to the mozilla firefox folder, select firefox, okay.

YaYs!

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that's how they did it
Sep 2, 2007 2:22AM PDT

Good find. I was wondering where the fix really was. Thanks!

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This totally worked!
Sep 12, 2007 9:03AM PDT

Thanks to the OP for this fix. I had tried changing defaults in many different places all over Vista with zero luck...i had basically given up....

Recently I decided to look for a fix again, googled and found this post.

THANKS!!!!

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Default Browser
Nov 28, 2007 5:42PM PST

Go to Start => Run and then Type
firefox.exe -silent -setDefaultBrowser

Now every link will open only in Firefox.

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works now!
Mar 9, 2008 10:37PM PDT

thank you for the OP, and for the command linux dude.. worked like a charm! Grin

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reverse
Mar 9, 2008 11:10PM PDT

hey Linux dude, i was trying safari and seems to be working better blocking pop ups than firefox... do you have any idea how to reverse the command to set ff as default browser? thanks.

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No reversal, but...
Mar 10, 2008 2:56AM PDT

In Safari try going Edit->Preferences->General->Default Web Browser to set Safari as the default. Similar options are available inside Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, etc.

John

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Making sure Firefox is truly the default browser under Vista
Apr 7, 2008 11:20PM PDT

Many thanks, LinuxDude71178, this command worked like a charm ... it is simple, yet it "sticks".

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Thanks!
Apr 10, 2008 5:34AM PDT

You're a a genius Linux Dude..

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thanks
Feb 25, 2010 4:05PM PST

thanks to LinuxDude71178.