How can I open a URL in Android's web browser from my application?

Question

How to open an URL from code in the built-in web browser rather than within my application?

I tried this:

try {
    Intent myIntent = new Intent(Int         


        

Answer 1

The Kotlin answer:

val browserIntent = Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, uri)
ContextCompat.startActivity(context, browserIntent, null)

I have added an extension on Uri to make this even easier

myUri.openInBrowser(context)

fun Uri?.openInBrowser(context: Context) {
    this ?: return // Do nothing if uri is null

    val browserIntent = Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, this)
    ContextCompat.startActivity(context, browserIntent, null)
}

As a bonus, here is a simple extension function to safely convert a String to Uri.

"https://stackoverflow.com".asUri()?.openInBrowser(context)

fun String?.asUri(): Uri? {
    try {
        return Uri.parse(this)
    } catch (e: Exception) {}
    return null
}