Skip to Content

Submit your nominations for the Luxist Awards' Best in Decor
AOL Tech

defaultbrowser posts

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Browsers

How to make Firefox Portable your default web browser

DefaultBrowserYour default web browser in Windows is the one that opens any time you click a link to open a web page, open an HTML file, or take any other number of actions that would require a browser to load. It's typically pretty easy to make a browser your default. When you run Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, or Opera for the first time, odds are the browser will ask if you want to make it your default.

Things get a little more tricky when you start using portable browsers. These are browser that you can run without actually installing them to your computer. They don't write any data to your registry and all the files tend to be contained within a single folder which you can run from your hard drive, or a removable USB Flash drive or other media. One of the most popular is Firefox Portable.

But since Firefox Portable doesn't write anything to your registry, it doesn't ask if you want to make it your default browser. That's where a little freeware tool called DefaultBrowser comes in.

We first covered this tool a couple of years ago, when it allowed you to quickly and select your default browser from a small list of web browsers. But as the folks at Freeware Genius recently noticed, DefaultBrowser added support for Firefox Portable last year. That means all you have to do to set Firefox Portable as your default is download DefaultBrowser, run it once, click Firefox Portable, and hit "apply."

You can also select other portable browsers or any web browser not included in the DefaultBrowser by selecting pretty much any executable file using the "select your web browser" setting.

If you run Firefox Portable from a USB flash drive, if the drive letter changes you will have to register the program again.

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Windows, Freeware

DefaultBrowser - Today's Free File

I found today's free file while googling around looking for the solution to a problem I was having. After having some stability problems with Firefox, I set my default browser to Maxthon (both of which are wonderful browsers). I later decided that I wanted to switch the default browser back to Firefox, but none of the regular methods worked; I tried using the button right in Firefox's options, then tried using "Set Program Access and Defaults" right from the Start menu. Somehow it was automatically setting itself back to Maxthon.
 
So as I searched for a solution to my problem, I came across this handy little utility, DefaultBrowser. DefaultBrowser immediately successfully set my default browser back to Firefox, and interestingly did so in a manner that made it much faster at responding when clicking links in external applications. I'm not sure what it did, but I'm definitely not complaining.

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Livescribe Store
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio