Is there any way in Android to force open a link to open in Chrome?

Question

I\'m currently testing a webapp developed with lots of jQuery animations, and we\'ve noticed really poor performance with the built-in web browser. While testing in Chrome,

Answer 1

Here's the closest I've found: Writing a url and replacing http with googlechrome will open Chrome, but it doesn't seem to open the url specified. I'm working with a Samsung Galaxy S5, Android 5.0

That's the best I've found - every other solution I've seen on SO has required an Android app, not a webapp.

Answer 2

Here's a more generic approach - it first find outs the package name for the default browser, which handles "http://" URLs, then uses the approach mentioned in the other answers to explicitly open the URL in a browser:

    public void openUrlInBrowser(Context context, String url) {
        // Find out package name of default browser
        Intent browserIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse("http://"));
        ResolveInfo resolveInfo = context.getPackageManager().resolveActivity(browserIntent, PackageManager.MATCH_DEFAULT_ONLY);
        String packageName = resolveInfo.activityInfo.packageName;

        // Use the explicit browser package name
        Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
        i.setData(Uri.parse(url));
        i.setPackage(packageName);
        context.startActivity(i);
    }

Answer 3

All the proposed solutions doesn't work for me anymore. Thanks to @pixelbandito, he pointed me to the right direction. I've found the next constant in the chrome sources

public static final String GOOGLECHROME_NAVIGATE_PREFIX = "googlechrome://navigate?url=";

And the next usage:

 Intent intent = new Intent("android.intent.action.VIEW", Uri.parse("googlechrome://navigate?url=chrome-native://newtab/"));

So the solution is (note the url should not be encoded)

void openUrlInChrome(String url) {
    try {
        try {
            Uri uri = Uri.parse("googlechrome://navigate?url="+ url);
            Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, uri);
            i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
            startActivity(i);
        } catch (ActivityNotFoundException e) {
            Uri uri = Uri.parse(url);
            // Chrome is probably not installed
            // OR not selected as default browser OR if no Browser is selected as default browser
            Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, uri);
            i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
            startActivity(i);
        }
    } catch (Exception ex) {
        Timber.e(ex, null);
    }
}

Answer 4

There are two solutions.

By package

    String url = "http://www.example.com";
    Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse(url));
    i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
    i.setPackage("com.android.chrome");
    try {
        startActivity(i);
    } catch (ActivityNotFoundException e) {
        // Chrome is probably not installed
        // Try with the default browser
        i.setPackage(null);
        startActivity(i);
    }

By scheme

    String url = "http://www.example.com";
    try {
        Uri uri = Uri.parse("googlechrome://navigate?url=" + url);
        Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, uri);
        i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
        startActivity(i);
    } catch (ActivityNotFoundException e) {
        // Chrome is probably not installed
    }

WARNING! The following technique does not work on most recent versions of Android. It is here for reference, because this solution has been around for a while:

    String url = "http://www.example.com";
    try {
        Intent i = new Intent("android.intent.action.MAIN");
        i.setComponent(ComponentName.unflattenFromString("com.android.chrome/com.android.chrome.Main"));
        i.addCategory("android.intent.category.LAUNCHER");
        i.setData(Uri.parse(url));
        startActivity(i);
    }
    catch(ActivityNotFoundException e) {
        // Chrome is probably not installed
    }