Hayden’s Blog

Setting default browser using *gconftool* (Gnome 2.0/2.2)
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You will need GConf (and the gconf daemon running) to set this. If you
do *not* have the Gnome Control Center installed, there is a way to set
this using GConf directly:

See, which values are stored in that sub-tree. Save the output to a
file, so you can revert to those settings!

$ gconftool-2 -R /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/unknown
command = mozilla %s
need-terminal = false
enabled = true

Now, this should enter all those values (at least, they work for me):

$ gconftool-2 –set –type=string
/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/unknown/command ‘mozilla %s’
$ gconftool-2 –set –type=bool
/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/unknown/need-terminal false
$ gconftool-2 –set –type=bool
/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/unknown/enabled true

Setting default browser using *gconftool* (Gnome 2.4/2.6)
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This is basically the as above, just some GConf key change:

The relevant key on Gnome 2.4 has changed, but is pretty much similar.
Simply substitute “unknown” by “http”, especially in the commands to set
the values.
/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http

Also, the “https” branch may be useful. However, this is *not* set using
the GUI method mentioned above.

sloik2004 Lab Notes