Everyone of us has a unique preference when it comes to web browsers. Some hate Internet explorer whereas others cannot do without it. Some love Google Chrome whereas others swear by Firefox. Which is why, it can be annoying when you click on a link and it gets opened by a browser that you do not like to use. This happened because the browser you do not like, somehow got set as your system default for opening HTTP files. In this article, I am going to show you how you can change this and set your favorite browser as your system default instead. So let's get started.
The following are covered in this tutorial.
Setting Any Browser As Your Default
Let's see how you can set any browser as the default. This will work in all newer windows machines by it windows 7,8 or 10.
Step 1: Go to Control Panel > Programs > Set Your Default Programs and from the list of programs that appear, select the browser you want to set as default.
Note: For windows 7, go to Control Panel > Default Programs > Set Your Default Programs
Step 2: Now click on the Choose defaults for this program link.
Step 3: In the pop-up that appears, check the Select All checkbox and click save.
Using this method, you should be able to set any browser for Windows, be it Firefox, Chrome, Opera or IE.
If this method does not work, here are some alternate methods for setting specific browsers as defaults.
Setting Firefox as Your Default Browser
To set Firefox as default, do the following:
Step 1: Open Firefox and click on Options under the menu located at the top far right corner of the browser (indicated by three horizontal lines). Refer image below:
Step 2: Click on the Make Default button in the General Options section.
Step 3: In the pop-up that follows, check the Select All radio box and click Save as shown in the image below.
Setting Chrome as Your Default Browser
Step 1: Open Firefox and click on Settings link under the menu located at the top right corner of the browser (indicated by three horizontal lines). Refer image below:
Step 2: Scroll down and click on the Make Google Chrome the default browser button located towards the end of the page.
Step 3: In the pop-up that follows, How do you want to open this type of link (http) click on the Google Chrome logo.
Setting IE as Your Default Browser
The solution given here is for Internet Explorer 8 and above, but you can do this with any version.
Step 1: Open internet explorer and select Internet Options after clicking on the gear like icon to the top right hand corner of the browser.
Step 2: Now go to the Programs tab and click Make internet explorer the default browser link.
Step 3: From the pop-up that appears, select Internet Explorer from the list of programs and then click Choose defaults for this program.
Step 4: Now select all by clicking on the radio box and click save.
So this is who you can set your favorite web browser to open all your HTTP files. Hopefully you found this tutorial useful.