August 22, 2020

Thunderbird - selecting your browser

I like to use google chrome (which is its own topic, but for now that is the situation). Up until I upgraded to Fedora 34, Thunderbird would launch html links via chrome, which was just what I wanted. Whatever version of Thunderbird that ships with F34 now defaults to launching firefox, which is inconvenient in many ways. A simple example is that some sites I visit have login profiles and such that chrome manages. It is a pain in the ass to have to duplicate that information for firefox. Never mind that, this should be my choice, not something forced on me by the Mozilla/Thunderbird/Firefox evil empire.

So a little poking around tells me that I am running Thunderbird 60.6.1 (64 bit) on my desktop, which is a linux system running Fedora 34. I don't see any Fedora DNF package for thunderbird, and a bit of searching indicates that 78.12.0 is the latest release. The release notes for 60.6.1 indicate that it dates back to March 25, 2019, so perhaps the first thing to do is to update Thunderbird. My notes indicate that I downgraded thunderbird in 8-2020 to version 60 so continue to be able to use the keyconfig add-on. What I did back in 2020, was to edit the file /etc/dnf/dnf.conf and add this line to the end: 

exclude=thunderbird*

I remove this line and type "su ; dnf update thunderbird" and voila, I get Thunderbird 78.11.0, which is apparently as recent a version as the Fedora crew is making available. I click the thunderbird icon and indeed it now launches 78.11.

And now when I scroll to the bottom of Preferences/General there is a button to launch the config editor, which I do. As instructed in a tutorial, I search for "warn-external" and change the settings for http and https to true. The "Files and Attachments" section does not include http or https. However, this seems to do what I want. I use a hackaday email, which always has a link to the webpage article. I click it and now get a dialog asking whether I want to use firefox or chrome, and it includes a box to click saying to remember my choice for https links. And voila!! It works.

So now I will be getting the latest Thunderbird updates. The original reason for downgrading Thunderbird (the keyconfig add-on) will need to be investigated. Perhaps that has now been addressed in some way.

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Adventures in Computing / tom@mmto.org