The various *-www-browser alternatives should be linked

[Reuben Thomas]

Binary package hint: dpkg

I just installed chromium-browser on my Lucid Ubuntu system. It set the gnome-www-browser alternative to "chromium-browser". Fine, except that x-www-browser is still set to Firefox. So for some uses I'll get one browser, and for others another.

I imagine this problem also occurs on other mixes, e.g. Kubuntu systems for kde-www-browser.

I suggest that by default the alternatives should be chained. So, gnome-www-browser should by default be set to x-www-browser, which should itself on a default install be set to firefox. If a user installs chromium-browser, this should set x-www-browser (ONLY) which will then chain through to gnome-www-browser. Installing epiphany-browser might reasonably only change gnome-www-browser, so that Epiphany would not come up as the default KDE browser. This would then break the link, but deinstalling Epiphany should restore it.

Arguably, the gnome-www-browser should be removed, because in fact it is overridden for most users anyway by their "Preferred Applications" setting. Having two different ways to set the preferred GNOME browser is confusing and redundant. Alternatively, remove the "Preferred Applications" applet, or replace it with a GUI to the alternatives system. This really needs per-user alternatives, though, which is a whole other question.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: dpkg 1.15.5.6ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-23.37-generic 2.6.32.15+drm33.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-23-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Jul 12 12:34:27 2010
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
SourcePackage: dpkg

[David A. Cobb (superbiskit)]

See also comments on Bug #794720: Xfwm4 fails to respect preferred applications.

[Raphaël Hertzog (hertzog)]

dpkg is not the proper package to discuss this suggestion. Reassigning it to ubuntu since it concerns several packages.