1963970 - Default web browser set to 'userapp-Firefox-*.desktop'

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Core :: Widget: Gtk, defect)

Description

[doug.hs]

Attachment: Screenshot of the default browser list containing duplicate Firefox options

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:138.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/138.0

Steps to reproduce:

I've followed the documentation section "Install Firefox .deb package for Debian-based distributions" (on this page: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w_install-firefox-deb-package-for-debian-based-distributions-recommended) to install Firefox on elementary OS 8 (Ubuntu-based Linux distribution, Ubuntu LTS 24).

On first launch, Firefox prompts you to set it as the default browser, and that's what I did. The browser then recognized itself as the default, and I was able to use it to open links, confirming that it's working as expected.

Actual results:

However, when I go to my system settings to see what's my default web browser, it is set to an icon-less option named Firefox. It is actually a duplicate entry. The browser list contains two Firefox options: one with an icon, and one without.

Firefox option (icon-less)

The entry with no icon corresponds to this .desktop file:

$ xdg-settings get default-web-browser 
userapp-Firefox-2B3Y52.desktop

And it is located at "~/.local/share/applications" (my home folder). Here are the contents of the file:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Type=Application
NoDisplay=true
Exec=/usr/lib/firefox/firefox-bin %u
Name=Firefox
Comment=Custom definition for Firefox

Does it work? Yes, it's totally functional.

Firefox option (with icon)

The entry with the Firefox icon, when selected, corresponds to this .desktop file:

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

And it's located at "/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop".

When selected as the default, it works just as well as the other option. But then Firefox keeps nagging you to make it the default browser — again! It does not recognize that it is already the default!

Expected results:

This "custom definition" file is created whenever I tell Firefox to make itself the default browser. Why is it creating this file? Why doesn't it recognize the existing "/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop", and use that instead?

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Core::Widget: Gtk' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Martin Stránský [:stransky] (ni? me)]

I think this should be addressed at distro tracker - elementary OS 8 - and not here.

Comment 3

[Danny Colin [:sdk]]

:stransky I also experience it on Fedora 42 with Firefox Nightly so I'm not sure that it's a distro specific issue.

Comment 4

[Thinker Li [:sinker]]

May I know which package the file /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop belong to?
Does it installed by Firefox .deb ?

Comment 5

[doug.hs]

(In reply to Thinker Li [:sinker] from comment #4)

May I know which package the file /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop belong to?
Does it installed by Firefox .deb ?

It belongs to Firefox .deb installed from the Mozilla repository. I did not have any other version of Firefox.

But I'd like to note that I'm no longer using this package or the OS (elementary OS), so I may not be able to provide more info.