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The ‘browse-url’ package included in Emacs, originally written by DenisHowe, allows you to open a URL in a browser.
It is described in the EmacsManual under Following URLs and in the extensive package documentation accesibled with C-h P.
The main command to use is ‘browse-url’. The URL, which defaults to the URL around point, is read from the minibuffer.
‘browse-url-at-point’ will open the URL around the point directly.
‘browse-url-of-buffer’ opens the URL associated with the file in the current buffer.
‘browse-url-of-region’
‘browse-url-of-dired-file’ displays the file named on the current line.
See BrowseAproposURL
The built-in GotoAddress highlights URLs and make them clickable
This is controlled by the variable ‘browse-url-browser-function’.
You can customize it by entering M-x customize-option browse-url-browser-function and following the prompts. If your browser is not among those listed, choose the entry “Specified by ‘Browse Url Generic Program’” and customize the option ‘browse-url-generic-program’. Using a generic browser offers no remote control – for every URL you click a new process will be started.
For help on getting a browser that doesn’t die when emacs is exited, see PersistentProcesses.
See ‘browse-url-handlers’, included from Emacs 28, which allows varying how each URL is handled based on regexp-matching.
To control how file names are mapped to URLs, update the variable ‘browse-url-filename-alist’, for example:
(add-to-list 'browse-url-filename-alist
'("/var/www/cgi/files/" . "http://my.website.com/cgi?"))There’s ‘browse-url-conkeror’ but it is marked obsolete in Emacs 28.
Add the following to .conkerorrc:
url_remoting_fn = load_url_in_new_buffer;There’s ‘browse-url-galeon’ but it is marked obsolete as of Emacs 25.
Customize
‘browse-url-browser-function’ to ‘browse-url-firefox’ and‘browse-url-firefox-program’ to “icecat” Refers to the links web browser from http://links.twibright.com/ wikipedia.
Also known as “links -g”
Add the following to .emacs
(defun browse-url-edge (url &optional new-window) (shell-command (concat "start microsoft-edge:" " " url)))
and set the browser function
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-edge)
I don’t know why but to be able to use # anchors in URLs I had to define:
(defun browse-url-edge (url &optional new-window) (shell-command (concat "start msedge" " " url)))
– DieterWilhelm, 2021-08-30
Setting browse-url-generic-program to Midori just works fine :
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-generic
browse-url-generic-program "midori")From opera -h:
Usage: opera [options] url
-newwindow open url in new window
-newpage open url in new page (tab)
-backgroundpage open url in background page (tab)The netscapesque -remote openURL options are also supported.
Customize the ‘browse-url-mozilla-*’ variables to use “seamonkey” in place of “mozilla”.
If you’re running Emacs on Termux you can use ‘am’ to pass URL to browser. ‘am’ can be installed by running ‘apt install termux-am’. You can then add this to your InitFile:
(defun open-url-am (url &rest ignore) (interactive "sURL: ") (shell-command (concat "am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d '" url "'") (setq truncate-lines t)) (setq browse-url-browser-function 'open-url-am)
If you haven’t set a default browser, the system service will prompted you with which browser you want to open the url with.
Note: You need to include protocol to open URL with ‘am’ (example: “https://google.com” will work, “google.com” won’t and will return error)
If you try the Emacs Xwidget branch you can do:
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'xwidget-webkit-browse-url)
Then a webkit browser will show up inside an Emacs buffer.
I want C-u to always open in emacs (e.g. emacs-w3m) and C-u C-u to always open in external (e.g. Safari).
Is there a way?
→ Have a look here: http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/JorgenSchaefersEmacsConfig I have this in my .emacs:
(require 'w3m-load) (require 'w3m) (setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-generic browse-url-generic-program "/usr/bin/conkeror") (defun choose-browser (url &rest args) (interactive "sURL: ") (if (y-or-n-p "Use external browser? ") (browse-url-generic url) (w3m-browse-url url))) (setq browse-url-browser-function 'choose-browser) (global-set-key "\C-xm" 'browse-url-at-point)
hth Memnon
Alternatively, to use C-u to give a choice between opening in an internal or an external browser, with that choice persisting until reset:
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'eww-browse-url) (defun choose-browser (url &rest args) "Ask the user to choose between an internal and external web browser, the choice then persisting." (interactive "sURL: ") (if (y-or-n-p "Use external browser? ") (progn (setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-firefox) (browse-url-firefox url args)) (progn (setq browse-url-browser-function 'eww-browse-url) (eww-browse-url url)))) (defun mg/browse-url (args) "Call choose-browser function if the universal argument is used." (interactive "P") (if (equal current-prefix-arg '(4)) (setq browse-url-browser-function 'choose-browser))) (advice-add 'browse-url :before #'mg/browse-url)
If you want to be able to easily choose between different browsers (with w3m as the default) you can advise ‘org-open-at-point’ with the following code (note, it uses choose-browser from above):
(defadvice org-open-at-point (around org-open-at-point-choose-browser activate) (let ((browse-url-browser-function (cond ((equal (ad-get-arg 0) '(4)) 'browse-url-generic) ((equal (ad-get-arg 0) '(16)) 'choose-browser) (t (lambda (url &optional new) (w3m-browse-url url t))) ))) ad-do-it))
Defaults to w3m: C-c C-o Defaults to external browser: C-u C-c C-o Choose w3m or external browser: C-u C-u C-c C-o
Ask whether URL should open in a new window in private browsing mode (with Firefox). Unconditionally open some URLs in private browsing mode:
(defun my-browse-url-maybe-privately (url &optional new-window) "Ask whether URL should be browsed in a private browsing window." (interactive "sURL: ") (if (y-or-n-p "Private Browsing? ") (my-browse-url-firefox-privately url) (browse-url-default-browser url new-window))) (defun my-browse-url-firefox-privately (url &optional new-window) "Make firefox open URL in private-browsing window." (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: ")) (let ((process-environment (browse-url-process-environment))) (apply 'start-process (concat "firefox " url) nil browse-url-firefox-program (list "-private-window" url)))) (setq browse-url-browser-function '(("^https?://t\\.co" . my-browse-url-firefox-privately) ("^https?://instagram\\.com" . my-browse-url-firefox-privately) ("." . my-browse-url-maybe-privately)))
The built-in ‘browse-url-default-macosx-browser’ uses ‘open’, which uses the system’s default browser. To force using a new browser window, you can execute applescript from elisp (only in Emacs >23):
(defun browse-url-default-macosx-browser (url &optional new-window) (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: ")) (if (and new-window (>= emacs-major-version 23)) (ns-do-applescript (format (concat "tell application \"Safari\" to make document with properties {URL:\"%s\"}\n" "tell application \"Safari\" to activate") url)) (start-process (concat "open " url) nil "open" url)))
On the other hand, if you want the browser to reuse an existing tab if it has one already showing the URL, the applescript is somewhat more complicated. Instructions are here.