Clean way to launch the web browser from shell script?

Question

In a bash script, I need to launch the user web browser. There seems to be many ways of doing this:

$BROWSER
xdg-open
gnome-open on GNOME
www-browser
x-www-browser
...

Is there a more-standard-than-the-others way to do this that would work on most platforms, or should I just go with something like this:

#/usr/bin/env bash

if [ -n $BROWSER ]; then
  $BROWSER 'http://wwww.google.com'
elif which xdg-open > /dev/null; then
  xdg-open 'http://wwww.google.com'
elif which gnome-open > /dev/null; then
  gnome-open 'http://wwww.google.com'
# elif bla bla bla...
else
  echo "Could not detect the web browser to use."
fi

Be careful about your URLs. It's easy to get a character like `?` or `&` in there that need to be quoted. — Gabe, Jun 26 '10 at 16:35
You should be able to drop the `eval` (it's a security risk): `$BROWSER http://wwww.google.com` — Dennis Williamson, Jun 26 '10 at 16:35
I came here wanting a command for use in git bash (Windows). I [found](http://stackoverflow.com/a/35811643/552067) `start` is what I want. — Web_Designer, Feb 06 '17 at 19:23
The answer [SHELL script to open a URL](//stackoverflow.com/a/46751980) gives command for Windows `start https://www.google.com` — Michael Freidgeim, Nov 17 '17 at 04:21

score 101 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 26 '10 at 17:11

101

python -mwebbrowser http://example.com

works on many platforms

answered Jun 26 '10 at 17:11

jfs

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3

If the user has Python installed... But thanks for mentioning the `webbrowser` module ! – nicoulaj Jun 26 '10 at 17:41
2

@JulienNicoulaud I just installed debian and python is there. I think it's bundled with many linux distributions. – Tomáš Zato - Reinstate Monica Oct 08 '15 at 08:14
It's a nice module, but it doesn't seem to work with local files. This would be a common use case when doing web development. – Hexatonic Nov 01 '15 at 16:02
3

@Hexatonic: It does work with local files e.g., `python -m webbrowser file:///usr/share/doc/python/FAQ.html` – jfs Sep 07 '16 at 15:51

Philipp · Accepted Answer · 2010-06-26T17:48:52.560

81

xdg-open is standardized and should be available in most distributions.

Otherwise:

eval is evil, don't use it.
Quote your variables.
Use the correct test operators in the correct way.

Here is an example:

#!/bin/bash
if which xdg-open > /dev/null
then
  xdg-open URL
elif which gnome-open > /dev/null
then
  gnome-open URL
fi

Maybe this version is slightly better (still untested):

#!/bin/bash
URL=$1
[[ -x $BROWSER ]] && exec "$BROWSER" "$URL"
path=$(which xdg-open || which gnome-open) && exec "$path" "$URL"
echo "Can't find browser"

edited Jun 26 '10 at 17:48

answered Jun 26 '10 at 16:51

Philipp

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Oh yes, of course. Thanks. (First I'd have liked to use the `-s` option, but that doesn't seem to exist on Linux.) – Philipp Jun 26 '10 at 17:29
4

Isn't it [*bad to use `which` to detect binaries*](http://stackoverflow.com/a/677212/114900)? – msanford Jan 14 '14 at 16:09
3

I did the minus one for saying eval is evil. This is bash, not javascript. Catch phrases don't carry across programming languages. – Darth Egregious Dec 14 '15 at 18:02
5

except it's not available in OSX – gka May 22 '17 at 15:56
1

Beautiful use of bash (2nd version) ! learned something new today. – brokenfoot Nov 11 '17 at 00:41
about xdg-open and xdg-utils, isnt it only for debian or available for other linux distros too? – Abhishta Gatya Mar 16 '18 at 08:57
3

@DarthEgregious, Your downvote is misplaced. `eval` [is dangerous](https://stackoverflow.com/q/17529220/2417578) in shell scripts. – sh1 Apr 12 '18 at 17:03

score 59 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 06 '17 at 19:20

59

OSX:

$ open -a /Applications/Safari.app http://www.google.com

or

$ open -a /Applications/Firefox.app http://www.google.com

or simply...

$ open some_url

edited Feb 06 '17 at 19:20

Web_Designer

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answered Jun 01 '12 at 18:43

mbs400

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11

That's hardly very portable, either, but yes, that 's how you do it on OSX. – tripleee Jun 01 '12 at 20:08
2

The question says "on most platforms"! – Mechanical snail Jul 14 '12 at 04:09
10

Some of us are using OSX, so this answer is useful. – Dec 16 '12 at 16:19

score 16 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 26 '10 at 16:38

16

You could use the following:

x-www-browser

It won't run the user's but rather the system's default X browser.

See: this thread.

answered Jun 26 '10 at 16:38

Joan Rieu

919
6
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`x-www-browser ` does the job very well! – Basster Oct 12 '16 at 13:45
4

Doesn't exist in Mac OS. – jamescampbell Dec 07 '18 at 14:05
4

Lol, I just came here to comment on this and saw that my previous self had commented on it last year. This is some matrix / inception stuff. – jamescampbell Sep 26 '19 at 14:43

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 26 '19 at 15:02

Taking the other answers and making a version that works for all major OS's as well as checking to ensure that a URL is passed in as a run-time variable:

#!/bin/bash
if [ -z $1 ]; then
  echo "Must run command with the url you want to visit."
  exit 1
else
  URL=$1
fi
[[ -x $BROWSER ]] && exec "$BROWSER" "$URL"
path=$(which xdg-open || which gnome-open) && exec "$path" "$URL"
if open -Ra "safari" ; then
  echo "VERIFIED: 'Safari' is installed, opening browser..."
  open -a safari "$URL"
else
  echo "Can't find any browser"
fi

score -7 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 15 '16 at 18:21

-7

This may not apply exactly to what you want to do, but there is a really easy way to create and launch a server using the http-server npm package.

Once installed (just npm install http-server -g) you can put

http-server -o

in your bash script and it will launch a server from the current directory and open a browser to that page.

answered Jul 15 '16 at 18:21

Raphi

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This requires `npm` to be installed + `http-server` package + launches an unneeded web server... – nicoulaj Jul 18 '16 at 16:28
1

If you're going to use npm, there's a package called `open`, but it's still overkill – Matt Fletcher Aug 16 '17 at 16:14

Clean way to launch the web browser from shell script?

6 Answers6

OSX:

Linked