If you are using the KDE Plasma desktop environment on Linux, and have recently installed a new web browser, there is a simple tweak to set the different browser as the default one.
In this tutorial, you will see the step by step instructions to set a default web browser on the KDE Plasma desktop environment in Linux. This should work independently of whichever Linux distro you are using, provided that you are running KDE.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- How to set KDE default web browser
| Category | Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used |
|---|---|
| System | Any Linux system |
| Software | KDE Plasma GUI |
| Other | Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command. |
| Conventions |
# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user |
How to set KDE default web browser step by step instructions
Once you have two or more browsers installed on your Linux system, follow the step by step instructions below to set one of them as the default web browser in KDE.
In case you have not already installed a different web browser, we have a few related tutorials that you will definitely find useful:
- How to install Chromium web browser on Linux
- How to download and install Firefox on Linux
- How to install Google Chrome Browser on Linux
- How to install Opera web browser on Linux
- Start by opening the application launcher and searching for the “Default Applications” menu.
Opening Default Applications menu in KDE Plasma - Next, click on the “in the following application” drop down box to select your preferred default browser.
Selecting a default browser in the Default Applications menu on KDE Plasma - In case you do not see your web browser listed in the drop down box, you can alternatively specify the command with which to open web links. As an example, we will use
/usr/bin/google-chrome. This path was determined by using thewhich google-chromecommand.
Specifying the file path to the web browser we would like to use as the default in KDE Plasma - After making your changes, click on Apply and OK to close the Default Applications menu. Your changes will then take place immediately and there is no need for a system restart.
That’s all there is to it. Any links you click on will now be opened in the default browser that you specified in previous steps.
Closing Thoughts
In this tutorial, we saw how to set the default internet browser on KDE Plasma. The default web browser can be changed to any of your choosing, including Firefox, Google Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Brave, or the many others that are availble for Linux systems. To revert these changes later, simply revisit the Default Applications control panel menu and set your default browser from there.
