Linux: command to open URL in default browser

Question

What command we have to execute (from Java, but that should not matter) on Linux (different common distributions) to open a given URL in the default browser?

Answer 1

At least on Debian and all its derivatives, there is a 'sensible-browser' shell script which choose the browser best suited for the given url.

http://man.he.net/man1/sensible-browser