Clicking a http/https URL link opens Chrome not the default browser

Applications
1

In gnote clicking a blue underlined http(s)-URL,
e.g. http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/icon-theme-spec/

used to open the page in my Linux Debian trixie’s default browser, which for me is set to Firefox, aka firefox-esr.

However, now it always opens the page in the Chrome program ignoring the default browser setting.

But in my older Debian bookworm laptop, an older version of gnote (V44.2) correctly opens a link in my default browser, firefox.

Is there a way to cause the newer gnote to open XDG’s default browser? Here are my settings:

$ xdg-settings get default-web-browser
firefox-esr.desktop

BTW, this agrees with my Cinnamon-DesktopMenu | System Settings | Preferred Applications | Internet | Web: Firefox ESR)

gsettings (via dconf program) is: org/gnome/gnote/enable-url-links (Create links for URLs in notes)
use default value = off
use custom value = true

This problem is in gnote version: 48.0
On Debian version: 13

====================================
System:
Kernel: 6.12.57+deb13-amd64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 14.2.0 clocksource: tsc
Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.4.10 tk: GTK v: 3.24.49 wm: Muffin v: 6.4.1 vt: 7 dm: LightDM v: 1.32.0
Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)

Machine:
Type: Laptop System: System76 product: Pangolin v: pang15 serial: Chassis:
type: 10 serial:
Mobo: System76 model: Pangolin v: pang15 serial:
uuid: UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: AHP938_V00.10TSY6 date: 10/15/2025

CPU:
Info: 8-core model: AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS w/ Radeon 780M Graphics bits: 64 type: MT MCP smt: enabled
arch: Zen 4 rev: 2 cache: L1: 512 KiB L2: 8 MiB L3: 16 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1833 min/max: 400/5263 boost: enabled cores: 1: 1833 2: 1833 3: 1833 4: 1833
5: 1833 6: 1833 7: 1833 8: 1833 9: 1833 10: 1833 11: 1833 12: 1833 13: 1833 14: 1833 15: 1833
16: 1833 bogomips: 127763
Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm

Graphics:
Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Phoenix3 vendor: Emdoor Digital driver: amdgpu
v: kernel arch: RDNA-3 pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1, DP-2,
DP-3, DP-4, DP-5, DP-6, DP-7, DP-8, Writeback-1 bus-ID: c5:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:1900
class-ID: 0300 temp: 38.0 C
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.16 driver: X: loaded: amdgpu
unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu display-ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 2560x1600 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 677x423mm (26.65x16.65") s-diag: 798mm (31.43")
Monitor-1: eDP-1 mapped: eDP model: BOE Display 0x0ac1 res: mode: 2560x1600 hz: 120
scale: 100% (1) dpi: 189 size: 344x215mm (13.54x8.46") diag: 406mm (16") modes: max: 2560x1600
min: 640x480
API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: amd radeonsi platforms: device: 0 drv: radeonsi device: 1 drv: swrast
gbm: drv: kms_swrast surfaceless: drv: radeonsi x11: drv: radeonsi inactive: wayland
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: amd mesa v: 25.0.7-2 glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes
renderer: AMD Radeon Graphics (radeonsi phoenix LLVM 19.1.7 DRM 3.61 6.12.57+deb13-amd64)
device-ID: 1002:1900
Info: Tools: api: eglinfo,glxinfo x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr

Repos: ((NOTE! BECAUSE I’M A NEW USER AND ONLY ALLOWED TO HAVE 3 LINKS, I HAD TO MANGLE THESE URLS BELOW, ADDING A SPACE BEFORE .debian and .google and .signal, etc.))
Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2883
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
1: deb http: //deb .debian.org/debian trixie main non-free-firmware
2: deb-src http: //deb .debian.org/debian trixie main non-free-firmware
3: deb http: //deb .debian.org/debian trixie-updates main non-free-firmware
4: deb-src http: //deb .debian.org/debian trixie-updates main non-free-firmware
5: deb http: //security .debian.org/debian-security/ trixie-security main non-free-firmware
6: deb-src http: //security .debian.org/debian-security/ trixie-security main non-free-firmware
7: deb http: //deb .debian.org/debian trixie-backports main non-free-firmware
8: deb-src http: //deb .debian.org/debian trixie-backports main non-free-firmware
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list
1: deb [arch=amd64] https: //dl .google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-earth-pro.list
1: deb [arch=amd64] http: //dl .google.com/linux/earth/deb/ stable main
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-desktop.sources
1: deb [arch=amd64] https: //updates .signal.org/desktop/apt xenial main

Info:
Compilers: gcc: 14.2.0 Client: Unknown python client inxi: 3.3.38

2

Also gnote must have:

≡ | Preferences | Gnote Preferences Dialog | Links Tab | Create Links for URLs x (checked)

3

Also Firefox says: ≡ | Settings |

Screenshot from 2026-01-01 11-15-10

And Chrome says when it opens:

Screenshot from 2026-01-01 11-14-31

4

What about

xdg-settings get default-url-scheme-handler https

Gnote opens url via GTK API (GtkUriLauncher). It may prompt with dialog to choose the app, as well as set settings for the future.

5

$ xdg-settings get default-url-scheme-handler https
firefox-esr.desktop

6

Does gio open open the link properly?

7

Hi, Aurimas,

Not sure what to think about UriLauncher.html? I looked it up briefly, and it looks like it should work.

In the mean time I’m searching my brain for other ideas. I decided to try hacking. First setting Chrome to default; (and to no surprise it still opens the links in chrome).

But then I set Firefox back to the default browser. And this FIXED IT!!!

So I looked a bit further. I checked which files had changed in the last hour. I noticed that these have just changed:

# snapper -c home status 341..0 | grep mime
c..... /home/howard/.config/mimeapps.list
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/aliases
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/application
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/application/x-extension-html.xml
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/application/x-extension-htm.xml
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/application/x-extension-shtml.xml
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/application/x-extension-xhtml.xml
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/application/x-extension-xht.xml
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/generic-icons
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/globs
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/globs2
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/icons
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/magic
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/mime.cache
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/packages
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/packages/user-extension-html.xml
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/packages/user-extension-htm.xml
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/packages/user-extension-shtml.xml
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/packages/user-extension-xhtml.xml
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/packages/user-extension-xht.xml
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/subclasses
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/treemagic
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/types
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/version
+..... /home/howard/.local/share/mime/XMLnamespaces

Trying to diff them I got lost, but at least, for now, I have a solution. Thanks for looking at this.

– Howard

p.s. For the next time I see this, after the default flip flop above, I’m seeing these which don’t look right:

# ls -l /etc/alternatives/x-www-browser
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 Dec 26 10:39 /etc/alternatives/x-www-browser → /usr/bin/google-chrome-stable

$ ls -l /usr/bin/google-chrome-stable 
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 Dec 17 15:05 /usr/bin/google-chrome-stable -> /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome

$ ls -l /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome 
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1585 Dec 17 15:05 /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome

or /etc/alternatives/x-www-browser –> –> /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome

Where googe-chrome is a bash script wrapper that starts chrome.

And BEFORE changing preferred browsers above, here were some other (unhelpful) things I was seeing:

$ xdg-mime query default text/html
firefox-esr.desktop

$ env | grep -i browse
MANHTMLPAGER=sensible-browser
BROWSER=/opt/firefox/firefox

NOTE: /opt/firefox/ doesn’t exist on my new system and my historical comment in /etc/bash.shared include file says this is/was for Google Earth startup. (I updated it to /usr/bin/firefox-esr, but I don’t expect that is the gnote problem. Google Earth starts up fine before and after.)