default-opener

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This browser extension lets you right-click a link and open it in your default browser.

Why would you want to do this? Because life is difficult? I dunno. For me, Google Inbox is super buggy in Firefox (I can't send mail sometimes) but I want to use Firefox as my default browser. I actually really love Inbox when it works, especially the bundling feature.

I have resorted to running Inbox in Google Chrome but I want it to open links in Firefox.

Here's an example for how to install it for Chrome on Mac OS X. You will have to adjust some paths. If you want to install it for Windows, read this maybe.

Installation

Clone the source somewhere. Take note of the directory.

git clone https://github.com/kumar303/default-opener.git ~/dev/default-opener

Install the native messaging host application by linking default_opener.json in the source code to your NativeMessagingHosts directory. Replace ~/dev/default-opener/ with the path to your cloned source.

mkdir -p ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/NativeMessagingHosts
ln -s ~/dev/default-opener/app/default_opener.json ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/NativeMessagingHosts/default_opener.json

Quit Chrome if it's running. Start it like this:

open -a Google\ Chrome --args --enable-logging --v=1

Tail the logs:

tail -f ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/chrome_debug.log

Those steps aren't totally necessary -- it's just in case you need logging.

Configuration

In chrome://extensions/, turn on developer mode, and load the unpacked extension from the extension directory. Find the key for your extension on the same developer page, underneath your extension name. Open app/default_opener.json in a code editor and change allowed_origins so that it points to this extension key. It will look something like this:

chrome-extension://dehppekledagpdijhjbphlnpfednmoce/

While you're editing app/default_opener.json, also change path to the absolute path of where you cloned the source. You will need to replace /Users/kumar/dev/default-opener with your exact path.

Did you try turning it off and on again?

To apply the new configuration, reload the extension. Right click a link to see the 'Open link in default browser' menu item. If it didn't work, you may need to restart Chrome again.

Gotchas

Oh, so many. Double check these steps and make sure you've changed all the paths. Check the chrome_debug.log as explained above.

Beware that the native application part is a Python 2 script. You can see it in app/default_opener.py.

If you can think of an easier way to do all of this, let me know!