Changing browser for IPython Notebook from system default

Question

I would like to keep firefox as my system default browser on my Mac, but launch IPython Notebook in Chrome^[1].

This answer led me to my ipython_notebook

Answer 1

This might not be the right things to do , but

$ open -a Google\ Chrome http://localhost:8888
$ open -a Firefox http://localhost:8888

Works from me (only on mac) to open any url in one of the 2 browser.

Use the --no-browser option and make an bash function that does that. Or even have a bookmark in Chrome.

Answer 2

For people who want to make firefox their default for ipython notebooks (where it is not necessarily the system default), adding the following line to ipython_notebook_config.py should be sufficient:

c.NotebookApp.browser = 'Firefox'

For me, this was better than linking to the application file directly because it avoids the error: A copy of Firefox is already open. Only one copy of Firefox can be open at a time.

Answer 3

On OS X, you can put the following in ipython_notebook_config.py to open Chrome:

c.NotebookApp.browser = u'/usr/bin/open -a Google\\ Chrome %s'

The executable in '/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome' fails for me with 'unable to obtain profile lock', so going through 'open' is the only simple alternative I see.